Girl Geek Dinners

First Geneva Dinner Tonight

Our first Geneva Girl Geek Dinner will be tonight! Join us downstairs at Cafe Cuba in Place du Cirque. Sarah Lamb, founder of Girl Geek Dinners will be our speaker.

The Lego Show Reviewed by our Competition Winners! *Warning: Very Cute!*

Last month we had a competition to win tickets to go to The Lego Show up in Manchester.  The show happened over the bank holiday weekend and one lucky family got to go thanks to Lottie who won the family ticket!  When we sent them the tickets we set them an optional challenge to review [...]

Parents & Teachers: BAFTA to livestream Young Game Designers Workshop! (Thurs 17th May from 1pm)

Teachers and students are invited by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to watch a live-streamed workshop aimed at teaching young people more about video game-making and inspiring them to make a game of their own. The workshop, taking place at Bradford’s National Media Museum at 13:00 on Thursday 17 May, is [...]

FujiFilm Finepix F600EXR Review

I’m not what you would call a digital SLR geek but I love my point & shoot cameras so I was curious about the FujiFilm Finepix F600EXR.  Why have all that weight to carry around when all you want is a decent picture with the least amount of fuss! My usual camera is a Panasonic [...]

Orbitsound T12 v3 Review

I’ve been “playing” with the latest Orbitsound device, the Orbitsound T12 V3 which is a long slim speaker system. The speaker has a slot for an iPhone/ iPod so that you can play your music through it but it’s really set up as a living room sound system that sits really nicely underneath the TV. [...]

Competition: Design Geeks this one’s for you!

Girl Geek Dinners has had the same Wordpress theme for ages and it’s about time that we did a refresh.  With the organizers constantly busy arranging events, finding funding and doing our best to create awesome events we’re opening our doors with a design competition. 

The competition is simple, put forward your best designs for the Girl Geek Dinners main website as jpg, png or gif files along with a description of how your design will be flexible enough to showcase our projects, top news, events and ways to get involved in an innovative and visually appealing way. 

Things that your entry must include:

• The Girl Geek Dinner logo and name on all webpages
• Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Email & Newsletter links
• Our main web pages in the menu system
• Images of your entry and description of how it would work

This is a global competition open to anyone with the skills to implement their design on WordPress.  The winner will be invited to implement their design on the main Girl Geek Dinners site as a showcase of their talent and a page about them will be created so that if anyone else would like to use their design skills then they can get in touch!  At the winner’s discression they are invited to become the resident designer for the next 12 months.

The competition is open until 1st June 2012 and all entries should be sent to designcomp@girlgeekdinners.com everyone from the Girl Geek Dinners community will then be able to see all entries and be able to vote on their favourite by and a winner will be chosen on the 15th June 2012 based on these votes.

Reading Girl Geek Dinners Re-launch event – Wed 30th May, 7pm at Copa, Reading

Reading Girl Geek Dinners are hosting a re-launch event on Wednesday 30th May at Copa,  76-78A Kings Road, Reading, RG1 3BJ

The theme of the evening will be “I’m a Girl Geek because…..”. Come and share ideas, get inspiration and meet like-minded people. Remembering that you don’t have to work directly in IT to be a Geek. You just need to have a passion for it so you can share your knowledge and ideas or learn from others at the event. Most of all, this is a social occasion where we can enjoy ourselves.   Full Details:

• Date & Time: Wednesday, 30th May 2012, 6:30pm for a 7pm start
• End Time: Late
• Venue: Copa, Reading
• Hosted by: Reading Girl Geek Dinners
• Food & Drink: Buffet (vegetarians catered for); buy your own drinks
• Subject for the evening: I’m a Girl Geek because…..
• Format: Reception, Dinner, Conversation, Networking Games, Raffle, Prizes.
• Capacity: 50 people
• Attendees: As ever, Boy Geeks are welcome to attend if invited by a Girl Geek.  
• Cost: As we have been unable to locate a sponsor for this event, we do need to request £9 on entry to cover the cost of the catering for the event which we will collect on the night.
• Registration for this event will close on 25th May.

If you’d like to attend on 30th May, please sign up via the Register button, and we’ll see you at the event!

Twitter Event: How secure are your mobile devices? Wednesday 9th May, 2012 @ 11am (BST) #mobilechat

Fellow Girl Geek, Zoe Sands of Juniper Networks’ will be hosting a Tweet Chat – 9th May at 11am (BST) with Oliver Crofton, Ethical Hacker, Vigilante Bespoke and Paul Gainham, Senior Director Solutions Marketing EMEA, Juniper Networks. The theme of the chat will be mobile device security, threats and how you can secure your device and network.

Anyone can participate, so please do join the chat on 9 May at 11am (BST).  All it takes is to log into Twitter, follow the hashtag#mobilechat between 11am and 12 noon (BST) and join in the conversation by adding a question for Oliver Crofton and or@PaulGainham. Note that the chat will be hosted from @Juniper_UK, with various moderators. If you want to submit your mobile security chat question before the event, then please direct message either @Juniper_UK or @ZoeSands.

We all seem to be attached to our mobile devices in one way or another but how secure is your device?

Zoe will be giving away three Mobile Device Security books during the event.

If you are concerned about mobile security  or have an interest in this subject then this is the  tweet chat to be at – follow #mobilechat and join in the discussion.

ITU seeks next generation of social entrepreneurs

Would-be young innovators can win chance  to pitch their ideas to industry leaders at ITU Telecom World 2012. ITU has launched the second edition of  its Young Innovators Competition, giving young, talented social entrepreneurs  the opportunity to attend its key global networking and knowledge sharing event,  ITU Telecom World 2012, and the chance to win [...]

Duolingo

I am very excited because after months of waiting I have just had my Duolingo account enabled. Duolingo is a very unique language learning site. To explain the history of Duolingo, I have to start somewhere you probably weren’t expecting – captchas. Captchas are the pictures of words that have become common on any websites [...]

A fascinating evening with Martijntje Smits

When robots, both in appearance and through artificial intelligence, can mimic people more and more, the differences between man and machine will become smaller.
Will we ever witness that the human characteristics of machines are so pronounced that we should start thinking about robot rights, next to human rights and animal rights?
A provocative thesis which lead to a lively discussion.

Martijntjes slides are here.

Video clips:
Blade Runner – I’ve seen things
Festo – SmartBird
BigDog Reflexes

Photos were taken by Tom Verstraat.

Post written by Tom Verstraat.

Hands-on with Samsung Galaxy S3

The hype was slowly building and it has been ramping up for several weeks now. But the wait is finally over, as I entered Earl’s Court to discover what new device Samsung was unveiling to the world. Samsung have done well to be very tightly lipped about what new device they have been working on, [...]

BAFTA announce Young Game Designers Competition

    GirlyGeekdom and BAFTA are very excited about the imminent launch of BAFTA’s Young Game Designers Competition 2012. This year the competition is going to bigger and better than ever with TWO ways to enter. Game Concept Award – Do you love the way your favourite video games look? Are you itching to have a [...]

Competition: MOO Giveaway in association with GirlyGeekdom

We’re delighted to have MOO.COM provide us with prizes for our lucky readers in an exclusive giveaway! If you have not come across MOO before, they love to print – whether it’s creative business cards, Postcards, unique MiniCards, StickerBooks, Greeting cards, and much more!  I’ve been using Moo cards for ages now! They are one [...]

Two factor authentication for Gmail

Have you ever had your personal email hacked? I have, and when you work in technology and have ended up with colleagues and clients in your personal address book it’s extremely embarrassing. Luckily I was hit by nothing more sinister than a single advert for the HD TVs, but think what could have happened! I [...]

Educators – Google want to HangOut with you…

    Google are hosting an entire series of education and technology related content on Google+ today from 12 – 10pm Eastern Time. You do not need to register to watch the Hangouts On Air. Visit the Conference Schedule tab to find sessions that interest you and add them to your calendar. All Hangouts will be live on the [...]

Save the date – First Geneva Dinner

Our first Geneva Girl Geeks Dinner will be on the 16th May. The guest speaker will be Sarah Lamb, founder of Girl Geek Dinners. Join us to find out more about the group and meet other girl geeks. Guys are welcome too. Details to follow shortly!

Spying Addicts: Who they are and how to know if you are one.

Conquering the unknown requires knowledge and to gain that knowledge we need to learn or extract information somewhere. When we use cell phone or computer monitoring software we are actually conquering the unknown by getting proper “data nourishment” from the information that it collects. However, depending on the level and quality of information that we [...]

“How to” guide to Draw Something

DrawSomething has just passed the 50 million download mark in under 2 months since its release. Find out why everyone is playing this addictive game in my video “how to”. “How to” video About Zoe CunninghamZoe Cunningham has been working in technology for over 12 years and is currently Operations Manager at Softwire Technology. In [...]

Female entrepreneurship in Europe: short online questionnaire, deadline 20 May

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels is exploring the topic of Female Entrepreneurship in Europe and welcomes input from interested individuals and organisations through a short online questionnaire.

A paper is in development which will be sent to the EU Commission, EU Parliament, EU Institutions and Member States which will make recommendations to highlight the specific policy needs to encourage the development of more Women Owned Businesses.

The EEXC welcomes input and any recommendations from people involved in this area. Together with WEPG (Women’s Enterprise Policy Group UK) they have developed a short online questionnaire, for completion by 20 May 2012.

The EESC will hold a hearing on the 30th May in the morning in Brussels. For an invitation, please contact

Ms Madi Sharma

madi@madi.uk.com

madi.csi@hotmail.com

00 447885306711

Twitter: @MadiSharma1

#barbera2 e la moderna comunicazione del vino: GGD Piemonte sostiene l’evento sull’innovazione digitale per la crescita economica d’impresa all’OpenCOWO di Alessandria

GGD Piemonte sostengono la giornata OpenCOWO al Lab 121 di Alessandria dove si parlerà del ruolo dell’innovazione e del digitale per lo sviluppo delle imprese; ore 18,30 intervento di Gianluca Morino su #barbera2.

Il 4 maggio il fermento creativo al lab121 di Alessandria comincerà alle 9.00 per una giornata dedicata ad OpenCOWO, un incontro a porte aperte tra professionisti e imprenditori del territorio, per conoscersi e condividere non solo un luogo di lavoro, ma anche una mentalità comune, progetti, esperienze e casi di successo.

Alle 18.30 interverrà un ospite dall’energia imprenditoriale dirompente, Gianluca Morino, proprietario di Cascina Garitina e Presidente dell’Associazione Produttori della Barbera Superiore Nizza.

Gianluca Morino è infatti ideatore insieme a Monica Pisciella di #barbera2 , nonché sponsor in proprio dell’iniziativa, e racconterà la sua esperienza imprenditoriale nella creazione di questo evento di condivisione e comunicazione del vino e del territorio ad elevato contenuto di innovazione,  mostrando come la tecnologia e i social media possano rappresentare una concreta opportunità di sviluppo per le aziende e per il territorio.

Quello di venerdì è il primo di una serie di incontri che si svolgerà nelle prossime settimane presso il lab121, e che si prefigge di porsi come supporto alla condivisione di esperienze di crescita economica dell’impresa attraverso l’innovazione, la rete, il coworking, il networking e l’utilizzo del digitale.

Alle 19.30 è previsto “il riposo del professionista”,  un aperitivo con degustazione dei vini di Cascina Garitina e in particolare di Villata 2010, la barbera senza solfiti lanciata quest’anno sul mercato da Gianluca Morino e il Brachetto Niades 2011.

Sostengono la giornata di OpenCOWO del 4 maggio e collaborano alla diffusione dell’evento sul territorio anche le GGD Piemonte, neonata sezione piemontese del gruppo internazionale Girl Geek Dinners, presente in 24 Paesi del mondo, che ha tra i suoi obiettivi la diffusione dell’innovazione e della cultura digitale come motore di sviluppo economico per le imprese.

(Dal comunicato stampa del LAB 121)

Sci-Fi London & London Girl Geek Dinners Presents… 2012

We’re going back to Sci-Fi London and once again you can buy your Sci-Fi London tickets at a discount as well since you’re a LGGD member! “GEEK GIRLS” is the code for your discount – THANK YOU SCI-FI LONDON!!  http://www.sci-fi-london.com/

Thanks so people not showing for the EA Games event we do have leftover wine so a big THANK YOU to EA Games for the wine Have you contacted them yet about job opportunities?  You should! Amanda Cowie was the lovely person at the last event and you can contact her with your CV on acowie@ea.com

Girl Geek Dinners on International Girls in ICT Day!

Today is International Girls in ICT day and we have events in the USA, Canada and Croatia happening today!

In Montreal, Canada we are running an introduction to PHP workshop: http://montrealgirlgeeks.com/2012/04/02/php-for-beginners/

In Bay Area, USA we are running an event with Citrix where you can find out how Citrix Girl Geeks are designing and developing new technology, working in the cloud, providing remote IT services, and growing strategic partnerships. http://www.bayareagirlgeekdinners.com/

And in Croatia we will have a non-sponsored ad hoc small Girl Geek Dinner in the city of Rovinj on April 26th. We decided to celebrate the Girls in ICT day by arranging presentations of female IT professionals and anyone willing to help in primary schools and high schools. The presentations or workshops will be held during the next 2 weeks. Our main aim is to celebrate girls’ interests and strengths and encourage them to choose a career in ICT by showing them how fun and interesting it can be in real life giving them role models. We will have presentations on designing and developing mobile applications, a Scratch workshop for kids, a presentation on bioinformatics, social networks etc. We are coordinating our interested female lecturers and schools at the moment. Find out more about Croatia Girl Geek Dinners here:  http://www.girlgeekdinners.hr/

Let us know how you are marking International Girls in ICT day on Twitter and Facebook!

The Lego Show Ticket Competition Winner Announced

Today is International Girls in ICT day and we’ve been running a competition in conjunction with The Lego Show up in Manchester.  The competition went well with a range of entries.  But we could only have one winner.  Our entries came from girl geeks of all ages and across multiple different mediums from iPad examples [...]

Reading Girl Geek Dinners are looking for organisations to host an event.

Reading Girl Geek Dinners are seeking a business to host our re-launch event in May.

What we require from you

We are seeking a business to hold an evening event on their site for our re-launch. We are asking for light refreshments to be provided to our participants as part of the event.

We also offer as part of the event the opportunity for a representative from your organisation to give a talk on a subject local to your organisation. This does not need to be a technology specialist company but can be any type of organisation that has faced technology challenges in the past year. Our aim is to share experience and knowledge and generate good dialogue amongst the event participants of the technology being discussed. Of course we do also welcome companies that can talk about technology they have built or specialise in. Please note that this is not an invitation for a marketing type talk but something with more substance around the technology, how it works, how it came to life, how it has evolved, challenges, successes, etc.

The agenda would usually look something like the following:

7:00pm – Arrive

7:30pm – Speaker

8:00pm – Networking & Buffet

9:oopm – Close

How you will benefit from hosting an event

All advertising of the event will be branded with your company logo during the lead up to the event and as part of the post event blogs, tweets and facebook entries. Social media is widely used by RGGD and our audience is global so we have a good way of spreading the news about your organisation.

A blog entry will be written after the event for people to comment and discuss which will also include your company’s branding.

You will have the additional advantage of being the company to help Reading Girl Geek Dinners relaunch.

We would love to hear from you if you are able to host an event and we are seeking to hold our first event very soon. You can contact us at readingggd@googlemail.com.

Eindhoven GGD#2 – Monday May 7th

Location: Trafalgar Pub (Dommelstraat 21, 5611 CJ Eindhoven)
Date: Monday 7th May
Time: 18:30 onwards
Cost: 8€, incl dinner & drinks
Maximum number of 42 attendees has been reached.
You may still register to be on the waiting list (if someone cancels, you may join).
Registration list is here.

Mariska Van Dalen: Innovating for sustainable factories of the future
Mariska is a sustainability consultant at Tebodin, where she assists the industry in redesigning their production processes. With multidisciplinair teams she facilitates workshops to generate innovative concept for factories of the future. Identifying the materials and defining use periods and reuse paths inspired by the Cradle to Cradle philosophy. Next to the materials she is also looking for ways to generate renewable energy and exchange surplus in the local surroundings.

Having started her education in business economics, Mariska quickly moved on to applied science and technology. She worked on compliance of Health and Safety and found her passion for sustainability through the documentary Tegenlicht that we need to redesign our industry learning from natural systems in which waste doesn’t exist.

Margot Nijkamp-Diesfeldt: Girl Geeks, the superheroes of our time!
Girl Geeks are such a talented species, but they often do not realize this. Girl Geeks are the new superheroes of our time, however, they do not always tap into their superpowers due to the personal drivers and beliefs they have. Girl Geeks are Wireless Autonomous Sensor Systems, whose data processing is sometimes lopsided. Here is a glance into new ways of looking at yourself and your surroundings!

The career of Margot Nijkamp-Diesfeldt is characterized by the start-ups of organisations such as Packard Bell Europe, Intermec EMEA, Emergency One and scientific open innovation institute Holst Centre, where she was involved on an MT-level. Margot’s responsibilities in these start-ups were in Human Resources, Communication and Operations – when starting as a pioneer a generalistic perspective is required.
Meanwhile in 2012 a new start-up is in the making: the Red Bluejay Foundation, where Margot Nijkamp has been appointed Managing Director. The Red Bluejay Foundation will focus on the generation of new ideas, advancing knowledge exchange and creating jobs for young talent.

Evening sponsored by

Click below for PDF of poster (designed by Susan Fuller).

Encouraging women into IT Careers…. But how?

There is alot of discussion about how few women are represented in IT Careers and in many of the articles I have read recently, there has been clear identification of the issue but nowhere have I read of any possible solutions. Therefore my fellow GirlGeekers, I am reaching out to you for some knowledge, guidance and contribution to this discussion. Let’s put our thinking caps on and share our ideas…

Here are my questions to you…

1. What would/did encourage you or your friends into a career in IT?

2. Are IT career learning paths too expensive to pursue?

3. Does maternity breaks and the challenge of childcare deter women from taking up careers in IT?

4. Do IT careers offer unsociable hours?

5. How do we encourage more women into IT careers?

You see …. loads of questions but I am sure that many of you have lots of thoughts on the matter and I look forward to your contributions to the discussion.

Cheers,

Melissa.

Interesting event by BCS West London Branch.

The following event is not in Reading but it sure sounds interesting if you’re anywhere near West London next month.

Details of the BCS West London Branch next event are as follows:-
Making Modern Communications: a new gallery at the Science Museum
Date/Time:
Tuesday 8 May 2012, 7.00pm – 9.00pm

Venue:
Room TC010, University of West London, Main Teaching Centre, Warwick Road, W5 5RF

Cost:
Free and open to Members and non-Members

Book Online: https://events.bcs.org/book/276/

Speaker:
Tilly Blyth, Keeper of Technologies and Engineering, Science Museum

Synopsis:

Making Modern Communications is a transformational project for Science Museum and the largest gallery project for over a decade. It will put history and the world-leading information and communications collections into the heart of the Science Museum experience. The gallery aims to be the world’s foremost gallery celebrating human stories that have shaped how we share information today. This talk will examine some of the objects being placed on display and how the museum plans to break new boundaries by combining interactivity with the collections, developing the gallery in participation with audiences and by combining the concept of communication with information.

About the speaker:

Tilly Blyth is Keeper of Technologies and Engineering at the Science Museum, London. She is interested in the history of computing and how digital artefacts and collections can enrich our social, cultural and educational landscape. Most recently her research has looked at the cultures of influence of the BBC microcomputer for the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). She also received an AHRC research networking award with UCL to develop an app exploring communications heritage in London locations, with the aim of increasing audience engagement, academic knowledge and public understanding. Over the last year Tilly has been leading the Science Museum content team to develop Making Modern Communications, a new information and communications gallery.

Tilly has previously given talks for BCS Women so some of you might be familiar with her.

EA Interactive & LGGD Forensics Event

On the lower level of the O2 Workshop, the London Girl Geek Dinners had a fantastic event sponsored by the lovely folk at EA Interactive.  The lovely people at the O2 Workshop offered us a great deal if we wanted to renew or sign up on the night – so much so I wish I had been able to take advantage!

The theme of the event was “Computer Forensics” and after a fantastic introductory session, we were introduced to some great tools being developed to find people doing bad things or things that had gone before on their hard drive.

Probably the most shocking talk was the first one. It really opened everyone’s eyes to how computers work, how erasing a disk works, how disk recovery works, and how it is almost impossible to erase all information from a hard drive.  As a rather ancient computer sits in my hall waiting to be taken to the dump, I’m trying to figure out just how to wipe all the information from the disk drives or whether a sledge hammer really is enough!

Apparently our identities are bought and sold rather cheaply and one of the reasons criminals like our mobile phones is for our personal data – eek! But the things we learned that night are going to last for all the women who were there. I know I learned a lot and I think everyone really learned a lot that night.

Our next event will be at Sci-fi London and as always, we will also have a special deal for tickets.  Sign up to the Google Group for London Girl Geek Dinners to get information on the event, special discount tickets for the event or information about any of our events.

If you’d like a chance to work at EA Interactive, pop over to their careers page or contact Amanda Cowie and see what is available. See you in May!

Sharing the the love on a Friday afternoon with LoveThis!

We don’t often do iPhone app reviews and to be honest it’s not something I am really into but this one was a bit different and it is useful.  It’s a recommendations app with a twist called LoveThis and the app is now downloadable in iTunes for those of you who are on those fruity devices! I [...]