Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

Subscriptions to the Brussels Girl Geek Dinner are now closed, since we’ve reached the maximum amount of people the venue can hold.

If you still want to come, put your name on the Reserves List. Same thing for the ones who are marked as Attendees now: if for some reason you can’t make it, please remove your name of the list in order to make room for the Reserves.

We’re still on for the first Brussels Girl Geek dinner on Wednesday 17 October 2007 6:30pm in the aforementioned Brasserie Mariadal in Zaventem (Brussels). Who is having free seats in her car (and from where)? Who is looking for a ride? Write it down in the wiki and hopefuly you’ll find a match :-)
We didn’t rent the whole castle for the occasion – just one room. Which only takes 40 people.
At this very moment, 38 people (31 girl geeks and 7 accompanying gentlemen) have subscribed via the wiki. Which means there are only two places left.
If you are on the Attendees List but can’t make it after all, please remove your name so you can make room for others.

I’ve taken the liberty to add the names of those who subscribed through the Facebook event page to the official wiki and it all adds up to 22 girl geeks. Five of them take a compagnon with them, which means so far we have 27 attendees.
There’s still room for a few more. So if you haven’t subscribed yet: please add your name to the list (the wiki password is frut).

Robin Wauters is happy to announce blognation is an official media sponsor for the event.
The Blognation post Girl… Geek? Dinner is a good round-up of how the Girl Geek Dinners’ succes is spreading all over Europe.

Robin has fixed himself a girl geek to come along with , and we’re really looking forward to seeing him on 17 October in Brasserie Mariadal.

For those who tune in late: Girl Geek Dinners are free for everyone who subscribes (password is still frut). And thanks to our sponsor Microsoft we’ll be able to provide some cold food and drinks for all attendees – probably even a goodie bag and a t-shirt.

Big thanks for the folks over at Microsoft!

Here are the badges Ine made for the first Brussels Girl Geek dinner. Add them to your blog or website if you would like to support our initiative:

Badge 150×102 pixels – rounded – Badge 150×39 pixels – rounded 2 – Rectangle 150×102 pixels – Wide banner 728×90 pixels – Skyscraper 120×600 pixels – IMU 300×250 pixels

Please simply link to http://www.brusselsgirlgeekdinner.be

Sample code:

<a href=”http://www.brusselsgirlgeekdinner.be”><img src=”http://www.brusselsgirlgeekdinner.be/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/banner3.gif” border=”0″></a>

Thanks in advance!

Since a lot of the girl geek friends I know are already on Facebook, I thought I’d create an “event” there too. Just to see how the RSVP feature works.

If your in the Book, here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=5931576989

Based on the fuzzy logic of the Brussels Girl Geek dinner wiki we’re going for this date: Wednesday 17 October 2007, 6:30pm. Venue will probably be Welcome to Youssef @ Chaussée de Waterloo 905, 1180 Bxl (Ukkel/Uccle) but that’s not been confirmed Brasserie Mariadal @ Kouterweg 2 in Zaventem .

So block this time in your Blackberry, your Google Calendar, your Moleskine or whatever tool you’re using to keep track of your busy girl geek life.

We’ve been able to convince Belgium’s number one geek girl Veerle Pieters to join the first Brussels Girl Geek dinner as a speaker.

Veerle will talk about her pet project Geeky Chix.org, which is still in private alpha :-p but she’ll be able to give us a sneak preview.
Personally I’m also very happy that no less than Ine Dehandschutter (who made the WordPress theme for this blog) already added her name to the attendees list in the wiki.

Currently there’s also at least one sponsor, which means we will be able to keep drinks and probably even food free for everyone.
The only thing we have to do now is decide on one of these 3 dates:

1. Tuesday 16 October 2007
2. Wednesday 17 October 2007
3. Thursday 18 October 2007

With an event name like Girl Geek Dinner of course it looks like it’s designed to be a female-only event. That would be a bit silly of course, although there are a few rules:

1. if you are male and wish to attend the event then you will need to be invited by a female attending the event.
2. and girls are not supposed to bring a whole harem of male followers, either. One date only per girl.

Best way around it is to have a look at the girls already subscribed in the wiki and somehow convince or bribe them to take you with them.

Why these rules? Not because of some feminist agenda, but to encourage women to come. If it would have been just “Geek Dinner” I think only only a handful of girl geeks would show up, feeling the odd ones out.
If any of you know any students or teachers involved in ICT or internet programmes, please invite them over. There’s a serious gender imbalance in the IT sector, and hopefully this kind of events will make people see technology as a really fun and interesting career option.