Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

UPDATE: Good news! I’ve been able to convince our sponsors to make room for 50 more girl geeks. This means that all the reserves can get in. There are currently 8 seats left!

Course of the evening

18:00 Registration. Two kind hostesses will check if your name is on the wiki attendees list.
18u30 Zaal 3: Speaker session, with Lynn Langit on Kodu, a programming language for kids, and Sarah Blow on designing and developing for mobile devices
19:30 Downstairs: Dinner and live demo of the N97 by Jurgen Thysmans from the Nokia team
22:00 Grab the goodie bag and go home.

Location

Metropolis Antwerp
Groenendaallaan 394 – 2030 Antwerp
Tel: +32 3 544 36 00
You can park your car on the parking of Metropolis

Sarah Blow (Twitter, LinkedIn) is a software engineer with an active interest in mobile and wireless appications development. More recently in the tech industry she has been drawn to web related technologies such as using new media technologies as part of strategies both internally to organisations and externally to improve communications. At BGGD #11, she will speak about designing and developing for mobile devices.

Sarah founded the London Girl Geek Dinners in April 2005 which she further extended to Girl Geek Dinners later the same year. She was made a Women’s Enterprise Ambassador in 2007 and is also part of Make Your Mark as a connector and an ambassador.

Most of what she writes about these days can be found on GirlGeekdom and SarahBlow.com.

Picture by Benjamin Ellis (@benjaminellis)

Our first speaker for Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #11 is Lynn Langit. She will  talk about and demo Kodu, a programming language for kids.

Lynn Langit is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft, based in Southern California.  She speaks live and online about the latest developer technologies, such as Windows Azure, Silverlight, and more.  Lynn hosts a weekly series on MSDN Channel 9 called geekSpeak.

Lynn leads the Southern California implementation of Microsoft’s DigiGirlz, which is a free program to give high-school aged girls information about careers in technology.  She is also a trained facilitator for WomenBuild SeriousPlay with Legos (check out the Facebook group).
In her spare time, Lynn personally volunteers coordinating a project called SmartCare in Zambia.

Don’t go looking for the N97 on the official Nokia site: it’s not in stores yet. But in the press release it says that it’s the “most powerful, multi-sensory mobile computer in existence”. Watch the video (.mov, autoplay alert) to see what they mean. The N97 will also ship with Skype pre-installed.

Designed for the needs of Internet-savvy consumers, the Nokia N97 combines a large 3.5″ touch display with a full QWERTY keyboard, providing an ‘always open’ window to favorite social networking sites and Internet destinations. Nokia’s flagship Nseries device introduces leading technology – including multiple sensors, memory, processing power and connection speeds – for people to create a personal Internet and share their ‘social location.’

Nokia is hands down the most popular brand among girl geeks. At least, according to our Quick Poll we did a couple of weeks ago.
Which is excellent news, because Nokia has agreed to sponsor the upcoming Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #11, The Mobile Edition.
They will put little shiny things in our goodie bags, and introduce one of their biggest new stars: the touch-screen multimedia N97 smartphone. And guess what…

They’re going to give away one for free!

Good news on Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #11, also known as The Mobile Edition. Microsoft has kindly agreed to host the 11 th edition on 10 March in Antwerp, as an extension of their Microsoft TechDays (10-12 March).  Plus we got confirmation on no less than two female speakers who are both experts in the mobile field. So keep the date free! Registrations for BGGD #11 will open shortly after BGGD #10 (The Beauty Edition 12 February, Brussels)

During TechDays, in March, get all the tools you need to shape your knowledge.

Whether you’re working for an enterprise corporation or a small business, in the private or the public sector, you can broaden and deepen your technical skills in Antwerp on 11-12 March 2009. Attend presentations and see demonstrations of current and future versions of Microsoft products and technologies – focusing on your daily work and activities.

Prepare yourself even better by attending a preconference in-depth training session on 10 March.

And spread a little love for the Microsoft TechDays . Pick a banner from their toolkit, blog about the event, or (re)tweet.

BG(G)D#10 – The Lipstick Edition @ sasvangent / Sa’van’A: “De locatie was mooi, het eten lekker en het gezelschap in topvorm.”

Les geeks aussi font l’amour @ La Fille de 1973: “Une sympa petite soirée où des geekettes ont fait la papote tout en suivant des conseils de maquillage et en se faisant pomponner.”

BGGD #10 @ Imke Dielen: “veel bekende meiden en gezellige babbels en luidruchtige lachsalvo’s”

Twunch & BGGD10 day @ Het leven zoals het is: “De hapjes waren fijn, de drank ook en al wat Nivea deed was gewoon leuk. En de goodie bag, die mocht er zijn.”

BGGD#10 @ The sound of one hand clapping: “Everyone got made up by a Nivea beautician, with corresponding advice. It was fun watching every one of us go under the brush, and come out, well, different.”

#BGGD10 @ Pensées sans importance: “même si, en général, l’exemplaire de sexe féminin de la race geek n’a pas vraiment le souci de l’apparence, elle est très curieuse donc, c’est avec attention (du mois au début) que nous suivions les gestes étudiées d’Anouchka, notre maquilleuse attitrée.”

BGGD #10 @ Pimpajoentje.be: “Nivea heeft bij mij ook nog altijd dat imago van natuurlijk, zuiver en ook milieuvriendelijk. Dat imago hebben ze gisteren weten te versterken dus marketingtechnisch was hun sponsoring een goeie zet.”

Brussels Girl Geek Dinner @ Witch: “Eens te meer hebben we bewezen dat geeks en nerds niet bepaald saai hoeven te zijn. Of lelijk en sociaal onaangepast. Maar eigenlijk wisten we dat al lang.”

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I won’t be able to be there tonight because I’m sick at home. But the show must go on, and thankfully I’ve been able to find three Girl Geek friends to replace me tonight.

Karen Vander Plaetse (LinkedIn, Facebook, @karen18) will be there inside the B52 house with the Attendee List and some name tags. She will also hand out forms for the Nivea contest later that evening (bring a pen). By the way: if your name was one of the 40 on the Attendee List but you can’t make it tonight, please move your name to the Off List so the Reserves (Antje, Mercedes, Thais etc) still get a chance.

Imke Dielen (blog, Facebook, @imkedielen) takes care of the reporting part. If you take pictures of the event, please use these two Flickr/Vimeo/Youtube tags: BGGD10 and Nivea. For Twitter, use the hashtag #bggd10.
Please let us know in the comments or through backtrack if you’ve blogged about the event so we can include your opinion in a round-up post afterwards.

Caroline Maerten (blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, @rollingtalks) will be our Nivea liaison officer and talk you through the evening.
Most importantly: Caroline will be the one who organises the raffle at 21:45 where she picks one lucky winner of the Nivea Make-Up Party.

This is what the tenth edition of Brussels Girl Geek Dinner (on Wednesday 18 February) will look like :

• 18:30 40 girl geeks arrive at the B52 house in Brussels
• 19:00 presentation: “La beauté lève le voile sur sa technologie” about a day in the life of a beauty scientist by Anna Grassano and Sophie Trenteseaux
• 19:20 Make up party (with 4 make up artists and live demos)
• 21:45 One of the girl geeks wins her own Make Up Party at home.
• 22:00 40 pampered and beautified girls geeks grab the goodie bag and go home

Note: Food and drinks are available throughout the event. Just make sure keep your hands free when it’s your turn to try out the make-up :-)

As you all know Nivea is so kind as to sponsor BGGD #10 a.k.a. “The Beauty Edition”. What you might not know is that they organise their own little get-togethers called “Nivea Make-up Parties” which go like this:

• You spend an evening with ten of your girl (geek) friends in the comfort of your home.
• During a 2,5 hour session, Nivea make-up artist Anouchka de Bellefroid lets you in on some tips and tricks to perfect your make-up routine.
• You get to know the entire Nivea make-up line and learn how to use it like a pro.
• Every girl (geek) gets personal advice from the professional during a 5 to 10 minute private session.
• You’re able to purchase any product you need during the course of the evening.

“Niveau Make-up Parties” are free of charge. Feel like organising one at your place?  Send an e-mail to cosmed@beiersdorf.com with your info and they’ll do the rest.