Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

No less than 19 girl geeks applied for the Tab 10.1 testing. Tough choice, but eventually Alia Papageorgiou (@Eurocentrique) was chosen to talk about her experiences with the tablet during #BGGD43 on 3 August in Brussels.

Where and when?

Wed 3 Aug 18:30
Samsung Electronics Benelux
Medialaan 50
1800 Vilvoorde

70 seats (for female and male geeks) available!

>>> Add your name to the list to get in for free <<<

Course of the evening

• 18:30 Welcome with drinks and finger food
• 19:30 Loesje De Vriese (Marketing Manager Telecom at Samsung) preview of the Tab 10.1
• 20:00 Testimonial by fellow girl geek Alia Papageorgiou (@Eurocentrique)
• 20:30 Sweepstake: win a Tab 10.1
• 21:00 (Walking) dinner + networking
• 22:30 Wrap-up and goodies

Keep the date free: on Wednesday evening 3 August Brussels Girl Geek Dinner will be all about tablets. One of the speakers is … you!

#BGGD43 sponsor Samsung is looking for a girl geek to test the Galaxy Tab 10.1, then talk about her experiences during girl geek dinner on August 3.

Interested? Mail Samsung@leadsunited.com . This Monday we’ll publish who the beta tester will be.

Building a story about the 42nd edition of Brussels Girl Geek Dinner. Any (blog, flickr, …) posts I’m missing?

>> Storify: BGGD42 at Winkelhaak, Antwerp <<

Brussels Girl Geek Dinners are not only about listening to interesting (tech) speakers and meeting the other girl geeks in an informal environment, but also about trying out new stuff. Like making beer cocktails.

Liefmans on the rocks offers you a whole new beer experience, a fruity drink served over ice for the ultimate summer refreshment. With notes of strawberry, raspberry, wild cherry, blueberry and elderberry this combination creates a stylish, fruity, sparkling and elegant experience. With the cocktails Liefmans even goes the extra mile in the world of beer experiences.

The attendees list for #BGGD42 filled up really quickly. But no worries: there are always last minute cancellations and usually we get all the reserves in!

Course of the evening:

18:30 Doors & welcome to De Winkelhaak
19:00 Speaker Wim Wouters, GriN founder and CEO about “The web is our playground”
19:30 Cocktail workshop by Liefmans Fruitesse; sodas (thank you Schweppes) and sandwiches
21:00 LaCie Twitter Sweepstake
21:30 Grab the goodie bags (thank you Liefmans & Douwe Egberts) & go home

I know it’s been a while… But as Marilyn Monroe used to say: “What’s worth having, is worth waiting for”.
The 42nd edition of Brussels Girl Geek Dinner In a nutshell:

#BGGD42
With Wim Wouters, GriN founder and CEO on “The Web as a playground”
Wed 29 June 18:30-22:00
50 guests (female only)
DESIGNCENTER | DE WINKELHAAK
Lange Winkelhaakstraat 26
2060 Antwerpen

>>> Put your name on the list to get in for free

What exactly is De Winkelhaak?

De Winkelhaak is a Antwerp’s public/private design center. Since its opening in 2000, the infrastructure and services are at the disposition of independent creative entrepreneurs, like architects, urban planners, interior architects, graphic designers, web designers and product developers.

It’s been a while since we announced a new Brussels Girl Geek Dinner. The reason is that we still get a lot of requests and ideas, but if, for example, the event would not be 100% free for the geek girls, I’m madame non. But don’t worry, we’ve got a few more cool editions in the pipeline and are just looking for ways to make it “click” for everyone involved. In the meanwhile, here are some ways you can keep track of upcoming Brussels Girl Geek Dinners, and get/keep in touch with each other:

• Facebook Group Brussels Girl Geek Dinners (369 members)
• Twitter List Brussels Girl Geek Dinners (following 255, followers 146)
• LinkedIn Group Brussels Girl Geek Dinners (219 members)
• Blog feed subscribe by e-mail (568 subscribers)
• Blog RSS feed (22 subscribers in Google Reader, not sure about the rest)

Want to know what the Brussels Girl Geeks are talking about? Read The Brussels Girl Geek Dinner Daily!

Dear Girl Geeks,

Here’s some practical information for #BBGD41 this Wednesday in Ghent.

Can’t make it? Please remove your name from the twikilist to give the reserves a chance to get in.

Important for us is the quality of the clothes. We are holding a quality
check according to the following requirements:

Your clothes are:

• washed,
• not damaged,
• timeless and trendy,
• not too basic items such as tops / cotton sweaters from H&M

The most common size is between 36-42.

Course of the evening:

• 19h: registration, quality check of the clothes
• between 19h – 20h: shop at the mini-store, grab a snack and drinks,
  opinion gathering and socializing.
• 20h: start Swishing: search, fit and choose
• after the Swishing you can win prizes and get your goodie bag.

Practical

#BGGD41 Swishing
With Karolien De Craecker (swishing.be / @swishing_be)
Wed 16 March 19:00-22:00
100 50 guests (female only)
zZmogh

Engelbert van Arenbergstraat 43, 9040 Gent
Use car park at the GB Dampoort (GPS: Pilorijnstraat 22) – route description to Zzmogh)

Until Wednesday night ladies!
Greetings, the Swishing team

Just one day after announcing the 41th edition of Brussels Girl Geek Dinners, the venue capacity was unexpectedly reduced from 100 to 50 people. I’ve adapted the Twiki List to register no more than 50 attendees. But as you know, by the time the event draws closer, we usually manage to get the reserves in.
Sorry about this. We could impossibly squeeze 100 fashion loving girl geeks and half of their wardrobe into a room that only holds 50.

In a nutshell:

#BGGD41 Swishing
With Karolien De Craecker (swishing.be / @swishing_be)
Wed 16 March 19:00-22:00
100 50 guests (female only)
zZmogh
Engelbert van Arenbergstraat 43, 9040 Gent
Use car park at the GB Dampoort (GPS: Pilorijnstraat 22) – route description to Zzmogh)

>>> Put your name on the list to get in for free (ladies only, please)

Interesting, but what is Swishing?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swishing

Swishing refers to swapping an item or items of clothing or shoes or an accessory with friends or acquaintances. Parties must willingly give an item to participate in the transaction, once they have given an item they are free to choose something of interest from what others have offered.

Swishing.be organizes clothing exchange events across Belgium. This time only for the Girl Geeks (and free entry for the Girl Geeks who register through the Twiki List).

What’s there to do next the Swishing itself?

Make-up artists, stylists, hairdressers are all at your disposal

• A mini market place with lots of nice stuff
• Food & Beverages
• Goodie bag
• And a free participation at the competition stage

Practical

What to bring? Max 5 washed garments (clothing, shoes, accessories) in good condition.

Course of the evening:

• 19h-20h: Handing over of your swishable clothing
• 20:30start swishing

In between: shopping and being pampered!

Just a quick note/reminder that this Friday night I’m doing my How I Wrote A Book In One Week keynote. There might be a strike this Friday, but this will probably not affect the train traffic to and from Brussels (since the people who want to go to Brussels to the manifestations will do so by train).
In short:

#BGGD40 Creativity vs Technology
Speaker: Clo Willaerts “How I wrote a book in one week”
Fri 4 March 17:30-19:45 (City2 premises close at 20:00)
80 guests (male & female – but only the girls get a free review copy of the book)
Fnac – City 2
123, Rue Neuve, 1000 Brussel

Can’t make it after all? Then remove your name from the Twiki List to give the reserves a chance.

One of the speakers during Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #39 was fellow girl geek and Microsoftee Katrien De Graeve. From her blog post Girl Geek app for Windows Phone 7 resources, slides and write up from #BGGD39 at blogs.msdn.com:

I had great fun combining a fashion idea with the Windows Phone 7. By using Windows Phone 7 developer tools, in this case mainly Expression Blend and using built-in controls such as the Panorama control.

As promised, the slides to her presentation:

If you’re looking for the info on getting started with building for Windows Phone 7 yourself, here are some of Katrien’s recommended resources:

• Download tools: http://create.msdn.com
  Free tools are in a single download that contains Visual Studio for Windows Phone, Expression Blend (special version for Windows Phone), the Emulator and some other tools.
• Learn online:
  • Windows Phone 7 Development for Absolute Beginners: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-7-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners
  • Quicktarts: http://create.msdn.com/en-us/education/quickstarts
  • Windows Phone 7 Training Kit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/wp7trainingcourse.aspx
  • .toolbox: not to miss resource for learning Expression Blend and Silverlight (not specific for Windows Phone but very much recommended): http://www.microsoft.com/design/toolbox/

More tweets and twitpics at Keepstream.com.

Blog posts (do let us know which ones are missing)

• Girl Geek’en met Windows Phone 7…BGGD39,  kregen de Brusselse Girl Geeks niet alleen hun Dinner, maar ook een introductie in het systeem. Mee Hyang Van Den Broeck gaf een rondleiding door haar smartphone, Katrien De Graeve toonde hoe je met een goed idee, wat creativiteit en wat handigheid een applicatie kunt maken met Microsoft Expression Blend en Steffest toonde waar hij zijn…van Saskia blogt
• BGGD39: Windows Phone 7/mobile hackingEindelijk nog eens een Brussels Girl Geek Dinner waar ik aanwezig kon zijn! We waren uitgenodigd, samen met de sjakosjen, bij Microsoft voor een voorstelling van hun nieuwe Windows Phone 7 waarmee ze de mobiele markt trachten te veroveren. Na de ontvangst met hapjes en een drankje werden we vergast op 3 keynote presentaties. De eerste presentatie …
  van De avonturen van het endimi-konijn
• BGGD39
  Gisterenavond samen met mijn collega geeks Veerle en Adeline naar de 39ste editie van Brussels Girl Geek Dinner geweest. Voor wie dit nog niet kent, dit is “an evening for woman who are passionate about IT”.
  Door Sofie Tersago

Time for a shameless plug: my book on social media for businesses is ready for print on 22 February (English version), and on 3 March (ePub, Kindle and Dutch version). The official book launch is on 16 March 13:00 in Standaard Boekhandel Sint Baafs in Ghent, but the first ones who get to see the book are of course the Brussels Girl Geeks. The book will cost 24,95 euros in book stores, but if you know the BGGD events well you can imagine there will probably be a little Oprah moment … just for the girls!

#BGGD40 Creativity vs Technology
Speaker: Clo Willaerts “How I wrote a book in one week”
Fri 4 March 17:30-19:45
80 guests (male & female)
Fnac – City 2
123, Rue Neuve, 1000 Brussel

>> Register now at http://twikilist.com/BGGD40

Time and place:

Wed 16 Feb 2011 18:30-22:00
Microsoft Belgium HQ
Da Vincilaan 3
1935 Zaventem

Max amount of attendees:

100 (1 male guest aka sacoche allowed per girl geek)

Course of the evening & speakers:

The evening will start with Mee Hyang Van Den Broeck who will give a short description of the new Mobile Operating System, Windows Phone 7. She will then introduce Developer Evangelist at Microsoft Katrien De Graeve for a presentation on how easy it is to develop an app for the Windows Phone 7 platform, showcasing a “girl-geek application” created specifically for the occasion.

To conclude, the amazing Steffest will explore the Windows Phone 7 to its limit and link it to the topic of hacking.

Use the Twikilist to register. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Hello ladies,

These are a few of the preliminary dates for girl geek dinners next year. Coming up next: a cool “3D” contest and an excuse to organise a Brussels Girl Geek Dinner at the BetaGroup Coworking space in Brussels.

• BGGD39 Wed 16 Feb 2011 18:30: Mobile, Hacking, Brussels
• BGGD40 Wed 16 March 2011 19:00: Fashion, Swishing, Ghent
• BGGD?? Wed 8 Juni 2011: Location-based Apps, Wellness City Tour, Ghent/Antwerp

We will no longer use PBwiki for registrations – their free version no longer has the features we need.

Switching to http://twikilist.com/ for the next edition. So if you don’t have a Twitter account yet, now is a good time! Let us know in the comments, so we can add you to the Brussels Girl Geek Dinner Twitter List.

[UPDATE: Registrations for BGGD39 haven't opened yet - this was just a "keep the date free" announcement. Will update on this blog as soon as they do.]

Well to be honest, we don’t know yet.

The Nokia people are deciding which picture of last week’s Brussels Girl Geek Dinner is as we speak. They will announce it today some time after 12:00.
In the meanwhile www.nokia.be/c7 went live, with even more prizes to win, like a trip to Thailand!

[UPDATE] The winner is Sara Vermeylen (@techonheels) with this Yfrog Photo:

The (Nokia branded) goodie bag contains:

• Passage Fitness First: a free 5 day pass for you and a friend
• A bottle of Passoa and a shaker
• BGGD branded M&Ms
• More chocolate goodness (Celebrations and Maltesers to be precise)
• Nokia C7 branded USB sticks
• A code for 3GB free online storage with wuala by LaCie
• Hair care product from Toni&Guy (remember #BGGD30?)

And… the sandwich bar is by Foodmaker (just like at #BGGD35).