Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

As you know, the next Brussels Girl Geek Dinner is on Saturday 29 March 18:00-21:00 in Ghent and for the occasion we’re joining forces with ITPro Geek Dinner (and whoever who’s been attending Barcamp Ghent during the day).

So far, no exact location has been confirmed. We got a few cool places in the center of Ghent in mind, but it’s not that easy to host 80-something hungry geeks. Neither is the catering and drinks, but we’re considering a “fries on wheels” concept. After all, we’re as Belgian as it gets.

But the really good news today came from the comments: Belgian interactive solutions agency Emakina.com has offered to help with the goodie bags. Thank you Emakina! More sponsor love will follow.

Earlier on BGGD #4:
Subscriptions are open

It’s spreading. BGGD was already present as a group on Facebook, and now there’s also a LinkedIn Group. I haven’t sent out invitatons yet, but if you’re already on LinkedIn, you might as well join the BGGD LinkedIn Group.

While the Facebook group will allow us to spread the word about our events in an informal way (and get to know the girls’ hobbies and boyfriends in the process), the LinkedIn group actually shows where all the ladies work. From our meetings, I’d say primarily in telco, publishing, advertising and in web agencies. Any industries missing?

What would a girl geek laptop look like? Well what I saw today at Popgadget – Personal Technology for Women comes pretty close: Sony’s Vaio Graphic Splash, a collection of limited edition notebooks. I especially like the customizing part: “When you choose a customizable VAIO Graphic Splash notebook, you decide what goes in the computer as well as what goes on it. Select the hard drive, processor and memory that’s right for you, and enclose it all in a bold and sophisticated shell.” In three colours, three patterns and four keyboard fonts.

Which made me think… what would the perfect Girl Geek Dinner laptop look like? Which tech specs and which “look”? Maybe we could pull some strings to actually go and get one for a very very lucky girl geek…

What do you think?

There are three subscriptions lists for what is now more or less called the full-day Belgian Uber Geek Fest on Saturday 29 March in Ghent:

1. If you want to attend Barcamp Ghent (29 March 09:00-18:00 @ IBBT building) put your name on this wiki: http://barcampgent.wikispaces.com/

2. If you are a girl geek and want to attend Brussels Girl Geek Dinner # 4 (29 March 18:30-21:00 @ somewhere in Ghent) put your name on this wiki: http://brusselsgirlgeekdinner4.pbwiki.com/

3. If you are a boy geek and want to attend the ITPro Geek Dinner #8 (29 March 18:30-21:00 @ same venue as BGGD #4) put your name on this doodle: http://www.doodle.ch/participation.html?pollId=yqk7mhvgcic26wrf  

• You don’t have to stay for dinner if you’re at Barcamp that day.
• You don’t have to attend Barcamp to be able to join the geeks for dinner.
• Both will be free for those who subscribe. Barcamp has t-shirts and we’re calling on sponsors to get goodie bags for the 80-something dinner geeks.

For the geek dinner, I’m toying with the idea to put the guys on the left hand side and the ladies on the right hand side, just like in church. No, just kidding :-)

We’re firing up for Brussels Girl Geek Dinner number four (BGGD #4 from now on) so mark this date in your diaries:

>> Saturday 29 March 18:30-21:00 CET somewhere in Ghent <<

This time, however, it will be a slightly different Girl Geek Dinner: we’re teaming up for the occasion with Barcamp Ghent and ITPro Geek Dinner. This means:

1. Saturday 29 March turns into some kind of a full-day Belgian Uber Geek Fest :-)
2. During the day (09:00 – 18:00) all geek unite for Barcamp Ghent. Organizer is Thomas Bouve, and the event takes place in the offices of IBBT (Zuiderpoort Office Park, Gent). Registration is open at barcampgent.wikispaces.com – so far there are 62 subscribers but only 6 of them are female. A barcamp is an open, user generated conference whose content is provided by participants. The one in Ghent is the first edition, but there have been several Barcamp Brussels before so have a look at their Flickr sets if you want to know what it’s like.
   
3. During the evening the boy geeks go to ITPro Geek Dinner #8 and the girl geeks go to Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #4. We’re still looking for a location and for sponsors to keep dinner free for both, but it will be in Ghent and we try and get all the hungry geeks in the one room. ITPro Geek Dinners have been around for a few years now and are organized by Serge van Ginderachter.
4. There will be no speaker for BGGD #4 because those who attended Barcamp Ghent first will have had enough of those.
5. We’re aiming to get every Dinner Geek (even the boy geeks) a goodie bag though

The wiki for BGGD #4 will be up soon. As usual we will use that to organise the attendee list. If you’e on the list, you’re in and you get free food and drinks and a goodie bag :-)

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Girl Geek Els Aerts was interviewed on Radio Donna. It was broadcast while we were watching the robots, but I’ve uploaded it for your convenience: Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #3 op Radio Donna.

Still curious? Watch this movie – the biggest revelation comes at 1:23. Apologies for the Dutch and the darkness.

This set contains more pictures of the Rabbit wedding between Ekmi and Edzimbi.

UPDATE: slideshow shows pictures outside “brusselsgirlgeekdinner3″ tag. @Sart68 if you read this: could you create a set just for the night? Fixed

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Tonight would not have been possible without the help and support of the kind people over at ONE Agency, who not only give us shelter and bandwidth, but also fill the goodie bags with lots of geeky sexy stuff.

Besides a limited edition Atoma notebook from Microsoft and a *very* pink Flair powerdrink, I honestly have no clue what else will be in the bags. But I had a look at ONE’s client list and this might give some ideas of what’s inside:
Neckermann.com – they do post order delivery. Maybe something just in time for Valentine’s day?
BMI: they fly from Brussels to London. Hmmm…
MySmoothie.com.
Jobat.be

Well I guess there’s only one way to find out :-) I’ve just closed the girl geek dinner #3 attendee list by assigning the 40th goodie bag to tonight’s speaker: Melanie Chamaah and her Tux Droid, who both work for the Belgian smart companion factory Kysoh. Thanks Netlash for helping us out with the video projector!

I also had a quick look at tonight’s Robot attendee list and judging from that there will be 8 Nabaztag, 1 Pleo, 1 Aibo and 1 Tux Droid. The Furby unfortunately couldn’t make it.

I’ve also heard rumours about the way those robots will interact tonight. We will need:

• 1 doctor
• 1 priest

On YouTube I found funny little movie about a Nabaztag and an Aibo talking together – hope we’ll be able to make more like these tonight. If you shoot pictures, please use the tag brusselsgirlgeekdinner3 on Flickr, YouTube and Technorati.