Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

Honda got us an extra Honda CR-Z Hybrid for our roadtrip next week so now we’ll be Looking at *22* female car geeks who’ll be driving to Paris.

I also got news from the Dolce hotel in Chantilly, where we’ll be staying. It has a swimming pool, and the possibility to order massages (or, “remise en forme”, as they call it).  Here are the availabilities – make sure to book well in advance for the massage sessions:

This afternoon we’ll open registrations for another great BGGD road trip (to Paris, on 5 & 6 October, in ten brand new cars).

But first: a little contest for all those who can’t join us. During the BGGD road trip, the girl geeks will try out how many of them fit into a Jazz (with its doors closed). The first one to guess the correct number below in the comments can have the new Honda Jazz for one weekend – as soon as it’s launched in Belgium somewhere in Spring 2011. We’ll be able to see who won on 6 October, when the girly car geeks get back from their Paris trip.

this is where we got the idea from:

Last year, at the start of Klarafestival, we had our first BGGD night out (with Gavriel Lipkind!) in Flagey Studio, Brussels.

This year, international Brussels music festival KlaraFestival starts today 7 September, with concerts and specials until 17 September.

I’m going to the  Club K project on Wednesday 15 September 21:30-23:59 in  Club K-Nal.
Course of the evening:

• 21u30 : Concert Invisible + Visual Kitchen
• 22u30 : American classical and jazz pianist and composer Uri Caine + Visual kitchen
• 23u15 : Mauro Pawlowski + Visual kitchen
• 00u : Shameboy

Want to join me? Let me know in the comments and I’ll arrange to have your (real)names on the guest list.  Feel free to bring a guest – just make sure his/her name is mentioned below. List closes at 30 BGGD names…

See you on the 15th!

Curious about what the Brussels girl geeks are talking about on Twitter? Want to use them as your Trusted Filter for news, web videos and cool websites?
If you have an iPad, download Flipboard (it’s free) and add http://twitter.com/bnox/brusselsgirlgeekdinners

Or… check out http://paper.li/ – it organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag. Check out the Brussels Girl Geek Dinner Daily:

Since the BetaGroup started, about 18 months ago, 68 tech startups have presented their project on-stage. But so far only 2 ladies
have presented their startup.

So the BetaGroup has invited 6 ladies Web Entrepreneur to present their startup for the next meeting.

Book your free spot now for this special event “Ladies on Stage” on March 30th at 6:30PM at the ULB in Brussels.

Info and registration at :

http://betagroup17.eventbrite.com/

Presenting Startups :

1.   UserPlus.org by Lonneke
2.   Silkinabox.com by Vanessa
3.   123feelfree.be by Leen
4.   Kameleonbon.be by Eva
5.   SchmoozyFox by Olga
6.   Belmodo.tv by Tiany & Angelique

Found at http://www.barbie.com/vote/:

“Computer engineers have lots of different specialties. They can do anything from building coputers to making video games!”

The next Barbie could be an environmentalist, a surgeon, an architect or a news anchor. But if you help with this vote, Barbie’s next career could be in IT!

Mattel decides on February 12 what Barbie will be next. I can hardly wait.

From the Twitter Blog: There’s a List for That:

Anyone can curate and publish lists, so if you have an idea for one, just click “New list” in the sidebar of your Twitter account and you’re on your way. Add accounts to a list using the “Lists” drop drown on a profile page. We believe Lists will be a new discovery mechanism for great tweets and accounts.

So if you’re curious about who the girl geeks behind Brussels Girl Geek Dinners are, follow http://twitter.com/bnox/brusselsgirlgeekdinners

And help me build the list: who is still missing?

On Wednesday 21 October  at 19:00-21:15 , Belgian chocolate brand Cote d’Or invites 30 Brussels Girl Geeks to its boutique on Square Petit Sablon nr. 1 in Brussels for an exclusive chocolate soirée.

Cote d’Or will divulge some of the secrets which gives its chocolate a unique and intense flavour.  A  chocolate 8 out of 10 Belgians can recognize even when blindfolded. A chocolate that is the result of technologies and manufacturing processes imagined and mastered for over 125 years by the brand with the elephant. But all this magic also comes from multiple innovations and daring and delicious combinations of flavours. Discover some anecdotes about 100% Belgian chocolate, the origins of the cocoa pods and the different steps in the manufacturing process, such as the conchage.

Denis Vernaillen, chocolatier at Cote d’Or, will welcome you to his workshop at the front of the boutique to initiate you in his art before tasting in all exclusivity a new chocolate, which will pair two of the favourite flavours of the Belgians… surprise!

Also on the menu: tablets especially for this season, exclusively created for the Boutique, or gift boxes soon available online.
A cocktail will close this evening full of flavours.
Because the Boutique is small and cosy, we will have to limit attendance to the 30 girl geeks who put their name on the wiki page. This will give everyone present the chance to fully indulge in their chocolate evening.

See you next week !

UPDATE: Don’t forget to take your camera(phone) during the Chocolate Soirée. You can upload your pictures to the Cote d’Or Facebook Group to enter a chocolate related contest. Details about this contest will be revealed tonight.

Getting more girls and women into the technology sector is today not only a gender equality issue but an economic necessity. This necessity was the starting point for EUD, short for European Directory of Women and ICT.

The European Directory of Women and ICT is a new ecospace for all stakeholders (public, private, academia, NGOs, networks, clusters, projects and individual users) interested in measurably and significantly increasing the number of girls and women in the knowledge based economy in general and in ICT in specific.

This initiative, which is the 1st regional directory for Women and ICT issues, is supported by universities, organisations, and companies like Imec, HP, Google, Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco.

So what do you think: should we add the Brussels Girl Geeks events to their calendar? Or add our names to the database?

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
From the Luon blog:

Yesterday, Solo treated our girl geek jury and 5 of their friends to an exclusive cooking workshop with Jeroen De Pauw. The location was wonderful, the dishes looked delish and the company was to die for. For the occasion, chef de cuisine Jeroen De Pauw prepared a special girl geek menu consisting of 3 super tasty yet healthy dishes. You can easily try out the recipes for yourself. Just follow the instructions at www.solo.be/nl/girlgeekdinner (in Dutch).

For all the girl geeks who couldn’t make it to the workshop Solo also has a special surprise. To celebrate the launch of Solo Light we are going to give away richly filled gift baskets to 10 girl geeks who register to the site via www.solo.be/nl/girlgeekdinner

The site will be updated with a French girl geek page shortly.

International Brussels music festival Klarafestival (world-class classical music is presented in an unusual light) invites 30 girl geeks for their opening night.
So if you feel like dressing up a bit and spend a night out while watching young and talented musicians play classical music, put your name on the wiki.

For your information, the first part of the Klarafestival First Day‘s programme is a free event, with concerts in Brussels metro stations, train stations and squares. Our favourite:

18.00 – 19.00 Place Flagey: German classical pianist and 2003 International Queen Elizabeth competition winner Severin von Eckardstein (wikipedia entry)

But for the 30 girl geeks who put their name on the wiki, this is the course of the evening:

20:00 Flagey Studio 4: evening concert by Israeli cellist Gavriel Lipkind & pianist Roman Zaslavsky
Champaign break at the Flagey bar
22:00 Café Belga: late night concert Tolvan Big Band (prize-winning Swedish Big Band jazz)

Please help spread the word on Klarafestival:

• link/subscribe to klarafestival.be (blog)
• follow @klarafestival and use #klarafestival on Twitter
• join Klarafestival Facebook group
• listen to Klarafestival last.fm playlist
• concert pics on Flickr
• friend Klarafestival on Netlog
• subscribe to Youtube channel for interviews

About two months ago, five Brussels Girl Geeks (@bnox, @imkedielen, @sasvangent, @tamaragielen and @beatever) were invited to be part of the jury of VTM’s tv show Chef vs Vlaanderen. And we have good news:

1. We’re on tv this Thursday 27 August 20:45 VTM. Tune in to see who won: Jeroen De Pauw or David De Wit.
2. Remember we wrote we’d try and convince [tv cook Jeroen De Pauw] to cook just for us one day? He will, at his home, on Monday 7 September. Big question: what do you think he should cook? Is there such a thing as the perfect Girl Geek Menu?
3. We can take three more girl geeks along. Want to join us? The first 3 to comment to this blog post can come!

When girl geeks think of “hardware” they usually don’t associate it with hand planes, saws, rulers, try squares, chisels, and screwdrivers.
But that picture frame isn’t going to hang itself on your wall!
Which is why Stanley just launched a DIY site for women:
www.ik-doe-het-zelf.be (French version is on it’s way).

Stanley also organises Home Improvement workshops for soon-to-be-handy women. The starter edition is on Saturday 22 August 09:00-12:00 in Antwerp and features no one less than The Block expert Sanchez.

Want to get handy? The first 20 girl geeks who e-mail their name, first name and phone number to sabine.clappaert (at ) musecommunication.com get in for free!

Tomorrow Thursday July 2nd, VTM tv station kicks off season 2 of Chef vs Vlaanderen. Amateur chefs get a second change to defeat professional chef Jeroen De Pauw in a head-to-head cooking duel. To do so they have to convince the jury of their culinary skills in a blind taste test.

Luon‘s Glenn Van Hoof (@glennvh) invited five of the Brussels Girl Geeks to be part of one of the jury panels:  @bnox, @imkedielen, @sasvangent, @tamaragielen and @beatever. The location (Kasteel van Laarne) was awesome, the food was delicious and Jeroen De Pauw is indeed the closest thing to Jamie Oliver in Belgium. I think we’ll try and convince him to cook just for us one day ;-)

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
And why the “Solo” in the title?  Solo is the programme sponsor and they surprised us with a nice basket of cooking videos and cookbooks. And butter, of course. They just revamped www.solo.be by the way. What do you think of their new site?

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?

Tech toys aren’t just for the boys. And although we use our gadgets a little differently than men, we still enjoy them in our everyday lives — for work, play and communication.
Think, for example, about the laptop you use every day, and the bag you carry it in. What does it look like? Is it a girly laptop bag? Mine looks like a giant black leather handbag but I love it because it doesn’t have “Steal me! Laptop inside” written all over it. (It’s a black Knomo Cholet and cost a small fortune when I bought it three years ago but I never leave home without it)

Aaaaanyway… the kind people at Belgian e-commerce company Indio are trying to find out.
Please have a look at their Laptop and Laptop bag Questionnaire – it will only take 5 minutes of your time.
After submitting your answers you are also eligible to win one of 5 vouchers for the value of EUR 25 to be spent on online bag store Bagazoo.com. Thanks, ladies!

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?

As Katia pointed out, the ATV item on Women and Computers is now available online: ATV :: Inzicht. Interviews with Ellen Quix (Eskimokaka) and Ann Laenen (Kandl), plus some footage made during the Girl Geek Dinner.

Scroll down to “Vrouwen en computers – bekijken“. When asked for a login and password, use GirlGeek and, of course, sacoche.

I’ve taken the liberty to add the names of those who subscribed through the Facebook event page to the official wiki and it all adds up to 22 girl geeks. Five of them take a compagnon with them, which means so far we have 27 attendees.
There’s still room for a few more. So if you haven’t subscribed yet: please add your name to the list (the wiki password is frut).