Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

EDIT: 60 ladies (plus 16 talking handbags) have subscribed for Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #5, on 14 May in Brussels and 10 more are on the reserves list.

You’re one of those 60 ladies but something came up? No problem – just move your name to the “off” list to give the reserves list a chance.

More guests:

• A camera crew from a tv station for some interviews. If you’re media savvy, just come forward when you see them.
• A small, musical robot friend who couldn’t make it to the Robot Session but is dying to join us now.

Our official speaker for Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #5 is of course Koen Vervloesem on Artificial Intelligence, but we’ve also invited a special guest star. It’s DuvalGuillaume’s own Isabel Peeters: manager, mother, wife, woman & online entrepreneur. Isabel will do an amusing 15′ keynote and informal Q&A on “How to handle the chaos”.

Isabel Peeters has a background in advertising. She has been working at Duval Guillaume since Andre Duval and Guillaume Van der Stighelen started the company twelve years ago. Today she is a managing partner at Duval Guillaume Brussels. She is the mother figure in the agency and combines a balanced rationale with a strong female gut feeling.

At the same time Isabel is the mother of three teenagers, manages a household and has an active social life. Together with her husband Fox, she started an innovative cooking concept – www.foxinabox.be – with an online store, that was awarded silver by BE Commerce in 2008.

Isabel doesn’t have a masterplan to do all this. There is only chaos. And a good way to handle the chaos from day to day and on a long term.

Koen Vervloesem is a freelance journalist and a blogger with a broad technical and scientific background, writing in Dutch and English.
He is specialised in writing about IT, science and mathematics for magazines and websites like Bits&Chips, Linux Magazine, PC-Active and Data News. He graduated in computer science (focus on natural language processing and artificial intelligence) and in philosophy (focus on logic, philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science).

His presentation will be on artificial intelligence, one of his favourite subjects. In short, he will be talking about the problems of artificial intelligence.

• What makes it so difficult to create a really intelligent computer, capable of doing all the things we humans do?
• What is intelligence anyway?
• Will computers surpass us in the near future?
• Will we live together with computers and even have relationships with them?

Good news: full service advertising agency DuvalGuillaume Brussels has agreed to be the host of the fifth edition of Brussels Girl Geek Dinner. Please give them lots of linklove, since thanks to our sponsors we are able to keep this event free for all the ladies.

The wiki is up: please put your name on the attendee list to get admission, cold food, drink, and a goodie bag for free.

In short (more information later on):

Wednesday 14 May 18:30-21:00 CET

DuvalGuillaume Brussels
Antwerpselaan 40
1000 Brussels
Route description (.pdf)

Topic and speaker: Koen Vervloesem on “Artificial Intelligence“.  Special guest: Isabel Peeters on “Handling the chaos“.

UPDATE: Arranged more goodie bags so now we can host 60 ladies now, not 40. I’ve moved up all of the Reserves List to the Attendees List.  There are still 3 seats left.
The venue can only hold 70 people, so please go easy on the “dates” (also know as “pratende sacochen”) you bring along.

The fifth edition of the Brussels Girl Geek dinner will be in Brussels, on a Wednesday night in April or May. But first, we need to decide on a date. I’ve put up a doodle here where you can check what your availability is: http://doodle.ch/ribzcm6xprswqr3g.

As soon as there are, say, 10 votes in favour of one of those dates, we go for that one.

Forum JUMP is an event focusing on women’s professional lives and career management. It is open to everyone, and will be held on 25 & 26 April 2008 in Husa President Park, Brussels. More specifically, it’s

• a meeting place for women, where the exchange of information, meetings and discussions are facilitated and tools to reinforce women’s professional and personal development provided.
• a space where heads of companies and Human Resources managers interested in women’s career management can exchange best practices.
• a combination of 8 conferences, 24 training workshops, several personal coaching sessions, 2 seminars for HR professionals, one on women leadership and the other on recruiting top level women.
• a professional women’s networks’ lunch

The organisers offer a 145 euro voucher for the two-day event, including the professional women’s network lunch. This lunch is Friday 25 April from 13:00 to 14:30. Participants will change seats for each course, thus meeting new people. Also:

• Each network will have a three-minute presentation pitch
• A renowned speaker will outline the importance of networks in career development
• The lunch attracted 130 ‘networkers’ in 2007, this year 150 seats will be available

Girl geeks special offer:
55 € (VAT excluded) for the Networks’ Lunch
150 € (VAT excluded) for the two-day ‘Corporate’ formula (instead of 250 € – VAT excluded)
→ Total price to participate to JUMP: 205 € VAT excluded (instead of 350 € VAT excluded)

Use the Order form to subscribe.