Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

As you know, the amount of attendees at Brussels Girl Geek Dinner is limited to 40. In a matter of days, the attendee list wiki has reach 39 names. So there’s only one left!

Don’t worry if you’re not on the list yet: add your name to the Reserves List. Last two times a few people cancelled last minute so everyone on the reserves list was able to join us.
I have also created a separate attendee list for the robots. The topic of Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #3 is Robots and other smart companions so the idea is to bring as many bots as possible and see how they behave. If you have a Nabaztag, Pleo, Roomba, etc please bring it along with you!

Best wishes to all the Girl Geeks and the ones who love them! Here’s a dancing robot for you to toy with:
Exobotics fem/yeti/penguin bot. Dancing to Daft Punk’s Robot Rock. Move your mouse, and your robot moves too – just like that!

As you probably know, entrance to Girl Geek Dinners is free and there is usually free food and drinks BUT only for people who registered. So I’ve just put up a wiki page to have all attendees subscribe:

http://brusselsgirlgeekdinner3.pbwiki.com/

The password to edit the page (and to add your name to the list of attendees) is tux .

The idea is to have as many robots under one roof and all these wifi gizmos will need lots of wireless connectivity. So we’re looking for a location (Ghent is fine) where we can easily accomodate 40 girl geeks and some 20 robots.

Anyone?

Melanie has a background in commercial engineering specialized in New Information and telecommunication technology. She is in charge of the eBusiness strategy at the Belgian company that produces the hackable Linux robot Tux Droid: Kysoh.

She will start with an overview on all sorts of smart companions and then of course do a live demo of the adorable Tux bot.

Remember the Tamagotchis? The Lovegetys? The Furbies? They were the first generation of a breed of creatures that are half toy, half robot. And now they’re spreading! I’m sure you all have or want one of those Nabaztags, Pleos, Rollys, Roombas or Tux Droids.
They’re not robots: they’re smart companions. But are they really that smart? How do they interact when you put all of them together in one room? And most of all: do girls need them?

The third Brussels Girl Geek dinner will not take place in Zaventem, but in Ghent. Will put up the wiki later today.
The subject of the third geek dinner is “Robots and other smart companions”. And just to give you an idea, below is a movie made by Netlash on his newborn Pleo.

Studies show that technology has become the new “boys club” but the students in Mr. Colosi’s first grade class intend to reverse that trend—these girls share their love of technology as a part of their future endeavors.

The benefits of using technology in the classroom are endless, and in the future it will be important that our digital learners are represented by both genders. Sung to the tune of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” these six-year-old students embrace the available equipment, enthusiastically share some ways they use technology in the classroom, and offer an empowering message of hope to female students. In conjunction with the internet, new technology would further allow Mr. Colosi’s class to spread this optimistic and collaborative message to students around the world.

Found via Eskimokaka – Ooh! Digital!, via Ondernemer in Gent – Girls go digital.

Ine pointed me to Dr. Pew‘s review of Mark J. Penn‘s Microtrends – the small forces behind tomorrow’s big changes.
Dr. Pew discovers that she is part of about 8 out of the 70 niches that Penn identified.

A few examples:
Social Geeks:
First to get axed is the myth of the lonely, spotty techno-geek. Sixty per cent of the most enthusiastic tech users are extroverted, according to a poll cited by Penn; 41% of techies like to “get things going” at parties compared with only 24% of reluctant users. “If the old cliche was that techno-geeks have no friends, now it is the case that techno-geeks have a crazy, impossible number of friends,” Penn says.

Tech Fatales:
Girl Geek Early Adaptors. Women spend a third more on technology than men. They influence 57% of technology purchases, some $90 billion in 2006.

I guess it all depends on how you define “technology”. Is it limited to information and communication technology? Are games included? Or kitchen robots?