For those going to dConstruct there will be a Girl Geek Picnic at lunch time.
It’s a great chance to meet other girl geeks from Brighton and beyond.
We’ve set up a wiki for you to stick your name down if you are planning to go.
We’ve also got a discount code for attending dConstruct if you haven’t bought your ticket yet. Please email rosie[at]schux.com for details.
Hopefully see you there!
Alongside this year’s dConstruct there will be a Girl Geek Picnic which is being organized by our very own Girl Geek from Brighton, Arsenic and Old Lace trailer Rosie Sherry! Intoxicating move Since the event is in the early planning stages there is just a wiki sign up Legend release Candyman ipod The Perfect Man [...]
by Marian Crichton
On June 3rd 2009 arrive at 7pm for 7:30 start at The Eagle
From the iPhone in your pocket able to tell you the location of nearest cash machine, to the amount you pay for house insurance to protect against flooding; spatial information affects almost every aspect of our lives. Mariam Crichton will talk about GIS and demonstrate FIND, a pioneering web mapping technology company that she is Development Director of. She will cover what the geospatial industry is, how it is used and developed over the years. Her demonstration will show the current power of professional mapping, reflecting how the use of spatial data impacts nearly every aspect of society, from governance and planning to the environment.
Date: March 4th 2009 @ 7pm
Venue: Upstairs at The Eagle
Food: there will be a lovely buffet
Register: online registration with option to contribute. (1 guy invite per girl).
We are honoured to have Natalie Downe talking at the next Brighton Girl Geek Dinner talking about “Practical, maintainable CSS”
Natalie Downe from Clearleft specialises in creating high quality client-side code on agency deadlines. In this talk she shares her development process, from planning through to delivery of a full CSS system optimised for maintenance by a client. The talk includes CSS rules of thumb developed over seven years in the field, as well as tips for taming the beast that is Internet Explorer.
You can also follow her on Twitter!
Emily Toop on Robots @ Girl Geek Dinner. December 2008
When: 2nd of December 2008 starting at 7pm
Where: Star & Sailor, 121 Western Road
Cost: Registration is online, payment is optional. (Guys can come as an invite of a girl).
Join Emily to get a chance to learn about robots! The evening will include a bit of history, some examples of *cool* stuff, some tips to get started on building your own and finish off with having a play.
And for afterwards there will be food up for grabs.
You must register and spaces are strictly limited.
Girl Geeks are back!
Be a part of shaping future events and come along to the Pitcher and Piano at 7:30 on Wednesday 22th October. We want to know what is was about the old Girl Geek events that made you come back time and time again. We would like to hear about what Girl Geeks means to you and what you want to see more of in the meetings. We want to hear about why you are a geek and what passions you have, and what we can do to share and build on your knowledge and interests. We want Girl Geeks to be about you and for you and we are inviting you to come along to help us achieve just that.
This is an informal social in the run up to more events coming in the near future.
Old rules still apply, guys are allowed but only by invite from a girl.
Date: Wednesday March 26th at 7pm
Location: The Werks
Relly presents:
Personality, Pulling Power and Prizes: Why good copy is your new BFF
Copy: all the words you use to sell yourself and your product. Your product might be your blog. It might be your handmade line of reconstructed garments. It might even be your handcrafted code designed to make any server swoon. Whatever it is, how you tell people about it makes a big (huge, enormous, gigantic, colossal) difference. In this short session I’ll talk about developing your personal copy style guide and how to apply it to anything you want your web audience to love. Just for one night forget your web bling and concentrate on your web blather.
(PS – no English degree required)
Sponsored by 
We are still looking for more support. Get in touch if you want to be a sponsor!
Sign up will open on Wednesday 5th of March at midday on the wiki (http://brightongirlgeeks.pbwiki.com/)
On Wednesday the 28th of November was the biggest Geek Dinner for the Brighton community – around 65 people attended. It was a joint effort between the Brighton Girl Geeks and the Sussex Geek Dinners.
This event was quite special for me for the following reasons:
(Photos by Jane Dallaway – more photos available at the Flickr group)
Aral gave a fab light hearted talk about his personal view of 2007, from Twitter to the iPhone to the Brighton community, he had a view on it. The most catching phrase being ‘omg, the geeks have gone social’. Which is true and perhaps will help shrug off the perception of geeks being physically horrible to look at and unable to communicate.
OHSO Social did us really proud, with a fab christmas vibe and super delicious buffet. I know this is true not just from people politely telling me so, but also from catching people go for 2nds and 3rds! You know who you are!
A big thank you to, everyone who attended and the sponsors of the evening – Spannerworks, Driven Systems, Cubeworks and Madgex – together we raised £828.78 for The Chestnut Tree House.
I personally would like to thank Simon and Devi Lozdan for helping make the night a successful one 
The Girl Geeks are combining forces with Guy Geeks to bring one big Charity Christmas Dinner.
Full details are available here
DATE: Friday August 17th 2007 from 7pm
WHERE: The Eagle Pub (125 Gloucester Road) in the North Laine area of Brighton.
HOW MUCH: Free
Julie Howell is Director of Accessibility at digital design agency Fortune Cookie . Prior to this she was the Digital Policy Development Manager at the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). Julie has worked with businesses, the public sector and government agencies to ensure the accessibility to disabled people of digital information products and services. She is Technical Author of the BSI specification for accessible web design, ‘PAS 78’ . Julie held the New Media Age Effectiveness Award for ‘The Greatest Individual Contribution to New Media 2005/6’. In 2007, Julie received ‘The Special Lifetime Achievement Award’ at the Imperatives Digital Awards .
A Brighton Girl Geek Google Group has been started – please sign up to be kept informed. This will be used to communicate news about Brighton Girl Geek Dinners.
Please feel free to contribute to the mailing list with any related information about geek dinners, technology, brighton and geek girls!
Sorting the women from the girls, this event brings together two important groups, the Brighton Girl Geeks and Women in Media . Their first soirée as one, these networks show the growing strength of an industry that is thought to be dominated by men. Think again misguided souls, the ladies have landed and will socialise, talk business and share ideas at this relaxed event.
DATE: Thursday July 12th from 7pm
WHERE: The Eagle Pub (125 Gloucester Road) in the North Laine area of Brighton.
HOW MUCH: Free
The speaker this time round is Denise Wilton (www.kaiusdesign.com/ ) – a graphic designer from the UK startup moo.com
In their most basic form, web applications are little more than
process. A step by step list of tasks, leading you on to a hopefully
successful goal. While geeks and engineers get excited about process,
this simple joy is often lost on consumers. There’s nothing to
connect with, to feel passionate about. Nothing to make people feel
special, guide them when they get stuck or reassure them when
something goes wrong. In short, there’s nothing compelling to make a
consumer come back and use your site again.
This talk is about designing a consumer web application with
character. Looking at simple techniques to give your app a little
something extra to spark passion in your users, and create a place to
which they feel loyal, and will return.
A Brighton Girl Geek Google Group has been started – please sign up to be kept informed. This will be used to communicate news about Brighton Girl Geek Dinners.
Please feel free to contribute to the mailing list with any related information about geek dinners, technology, brighton and geek girls!
DATE: Tuesday 29th May 2007, 7:00pm – 10:30pm
WHERE: The Eagle Pub (125 Gloucester Road) in the North Laine area of Brighton.
Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/194524
HOW MUCH: Free
This is a chance for everyone at the Brighton Girl Geek Dinner to have a say if they want. Under discussion – what it means for us to be Girl Geeks.
Instead of a speaker this month we will be running a fishbowl session so that everyone can get involved in the discussion. A fishbowl session is a structured activity designed to facilitate discussion in larger groups.
In our case we will set up five chairs for discussants. Four of the chairs will be filled with people ready to start the discussion. The fifth chair will remain free. A moderator will summarise the topic: “What it is to be a Girl Geek” and then the four starting participants start discussing the topic. The audience outside the fishbowl listen in on the discussion.
Anyone from the audience can join in the conversation at any time by joining and sitting in the fifth chair. At this stage someone who is not contributing can step out of the semi-circle, leaving another chair free. Anyone from the audience can join the chat if there is a spare seat. If all the chairs are full someone must voluntarily free up a chair by returning to the audience. The audience is not allowed to contribute, only to listen. If you wish to add something you can come and sit in the free chair and join in the chat.
This will just be a chance for us to hear more about the people who attend the dinners and their thoughts on being a Girl Geek. Noone needs to contribute if they do not choose. Although the discussion will be started it will not be led by any one person, it will be formed by all of us – here, we are not listening to expert speakers, we are all the expert speakers.
At the end of the session, when we run out of time, we will all get a chance to reflect on the discussion that we have had.
WHERE: The Eagle Pub (125 Gloucester Road) in the North Laine area of Brighton.
HOW MUCH: Free
Abstract: The Social Life of Virtual Worlds
As Internet technology has evolved, designers have explored the boundaries of human-computer interaction, fostering spaces which are, at least, collaborative communities and at most, significant social spaces. Social interaction is not only possible in today’s connected landscape, but is expected, encouraged and enjoyed by consumers across the globe.
In social virtual worlds, like the popular Second Life, participants engage with one another in enormous online environments for months and years. Arguably, the most compelling aspect of the long-term success of these products is the emergence of social systems previously considered the discrete domain of the offline sphere.
This talk examines the social lives of these spaces, focussing on the online networks which play a role in the development of trends and cultures, examining the roles of key players and offering suggestions for developers wishing to create compelling social environments in the future.
A Brighton Girl Geek Google Group has been started – please sign up to be kept informed. This will be used to communicate news about Brighton Girl Geek Dinners.
Please feel free to contribute to the mailing list with any related information about geek dinners, technology, brighton and geek girls!
DATE: Tuesday 13th March 2007, 7:00pm – 10:30pm
WHERE: The Eagle Pub (125 Gloucester Road) in the North Laine area of Brighton.
HOW MUCH: Free
Niqui Merret
Abstract: A usability approach to Accessible Flash
There may be hundreds of pages worth of standards and guidelines that are available to developers but most of them ignore or shun Flash. This leaves Flash developers with no information, no guides and no goal to work towards. Even if a Flash developer has the best interests of the users at heart, it can be difficult to work towards non-existent guidelines when you have no real concept of the consequences of your actions.
This session will focus on how different users interact with Flash by demonstrating a selection of both accessible and inaccessible Flash sites. Each site will illustrate challenges experienced by different types of users. Niqui will discuss in detail the barriers that each site poses and will make suggestions on how the issues can be overcome.
A Brighton Girl Geek Google Group has been started – please sign up to be kept informed. This will be used to communicate news about Brighton Girl Geek Dinners.
Please feel free to contribute to the mailing list with any related information about geek dinners, technology, brighton and geek girls!
Brighton Girl Geek dinners launched with success. This was the first dinner. We had 40 people attending, and throughout the evening we received positive feedback.
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DATE: Tuesday 16th January 2007, 7:30pm – 10:30pm
WHERE: The Eagle Pub (125 Gloucester Road) in the North Laine area of Brighton.
HOW MUCH: Free
The event was fully booked with a reserve list and even though some people were unable to attend they were kind enough to remove their names from the list. This meant that some people on the reserve list were fortunate enough to attend the event. A couple of people on the reserve list turned up on the night with their fingers crossed. Whilst this is not a guaranteed way to get in, it seemed to work perfectly and the event achieved the full 40 capacity.
The great thing about the event was the variety of people who attended, from newbies to oldtimers, we all had a comfortable place within the event. The fact that there was a common interest in technology without being dominated by ‘the male species’ made it a very relaxed environment.
Rose Luckin
Professor of Learner Centred Design at the London Knowledge Lab
Abstract: Learner Centred Design
Learner Centred Design (LCD) applies participatory methods to the development and evaluation of technology enhanced learning experiences. It is an interdisciplinary approach encompassing education, psychology and HCI and is driven by the needs of the learners and teachers for whom the experience is being designed. In this talk I will give some examples of the way in which the LCD approach has and is contributing to our research and to the design of effective educational technology. I’ll also indicate the ways in which these examples are contributing to the latest technology enhanced learning experiences we are developing.
A Brighton Girl Geek Google Group has been started – please sign up to be kept informed. This will be used to communicate news about Brighton Girl Geek Dinners.
Please feel free to contribute to the mailing list with any related information about geek dinners, technology, brighton and geek girls!
Behind the scenes are girl geeks working hard to make this happen, the current team includes:
Previous helpers:
Brighton Girl Geeks is a community run by local girl geeks. The idea originated from the London version – there are now events worldwide. After 2 years of existence, the Brighton version is evolving.
We all have a varying degree of interest in technology, some at a basic level all the way up to uber geeks. Our events create a social opportunity to relax and have a bit of fun.
Brighton Girl Geeks is a community project where all money raised goes directly back into running costs of the events.
After a while of finding sponsors per event, we are now moving towards yearly sponsors.
Sponsoring for 2009
At the moment we have a variety of speakers lined up to do a range of smaller and larger events. This includes:
Contact Rosie for more details.
