Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

After China, Germany, USA, France, Brazil, Japan and many others, Rails Girls will land in Brussels on 5th and 6th October!

Well-known and recognized in the web community, the initiative was born in Finland two years ago want to ” give women the tools to build their ideas.” Specifically, women will initiated for free to web development with Ruby on Rails, a tool allows the creation of web applications in an intuitive way.

With Rails Girls Brussels, the participants will have the opportunity to make their first steps into the world of programming and even create their own application! Surrounded by coaches in small groups, they can ask questions, to learn more and more about the fantastic world of web applications.

These workshops have been designed to promote the presence of women in the IT industry, still very male dominated, and generate interest – and even vocations! – by women who may feel excluded from web design.

Workshops are therefore addressed to all women, whatever their age, profession and nationality. They are also taught in English in order to preserve the international character of the community. Three conditions, however, to participate in the event: have basic knowledge in the use of a computer, register before 25th September via the link below and, of course, take her own-PC, motivation and desire to learn!

To manage this first edition in Belgium: Belighted, Belgian growing start-up specialist in web application development. Based in Louvain-la-Neuve, it is also the first French company to operate at 100% with Ruby on Rails technologies.

Follow Rails Girls Brussels on Facebook and Twitter!

Information:

Rails Girls Brussels, first edition:

• On 5th October at 18:00 and all day on 6th October.
• @ Coworking Betagroup, 4 rue des Pères Blancs in Etterbeek (Brussels).

Register and learn more about it on:

• Rails Girls: www.railsgirls.com
• Rails Girls Brussels: http://railsgirls.com/brussels
• Registration: http://checkthis.com/railsgirlsbrussels
• The organizer: www.belighted.com

Rails for Girls from Kisko Labs on Vimeo.

The Google Technology User Groups are organizing a European (or beyond) app hackathon series in honor of Android’s fifth birthday. They had some experience with this with GADC when GTUGs in 50 cities worldwide held a hackathon on the same weekend. This time, besides the local hackathons, there is a final best-of-the-best hackathon in London, right after Droidcon, where the first-round winners will gather. The local parts will happen in September, the final hackathon is October 26-28th.

The Belgian hackathon, organized by the BruGTUG, is going to be a big looong hackathon on the weekend of October 5-7th (more than 48h continuous). Check out our G+ Event page (RSVP there + click through for registration form).

We unlocked a great location for it, the library in Genk, Limburg. It’s a very spacious, creative and modern building and the young city completely supports us as to new digital media. Yet, we also thought carefully about many people that need to come from Brussels or further. The building’s next to the train station as well as easily reachable by car (with free parking), so it’s perfect for staying over a long weekend in such a touristic location. If it wasn’t such hard work to design apps, I’d almost say it’s a holiday. It’s free, food is included, though we do expect people to stay all weekend and sleep over (sofas!).

Teams will need to be exactly 3 people and we are calling for designers and UX-experts too. Other than that, typical hackathon rules apply. At the start participants will pitch their ideas. Next, teams will be formed. Then the hacking starts. The winning team represents Belgium in London and if all goes well takes the fame of being the best Android devs.

Prizes to be won:
• Free trip to London and accommodation for final hackathon (right after
Droidcon)
• Springboard accelerator option and seed funding (up to £15.000)
• Startup support goodie bag (£20.000 value)
• Android devices (10 pieces already)
• A small instantly consumable secret for one lucky team

Hashtag: #androidV #BE #genk

The first Belgian edition of the BeMyApp weekends is planned from 29th of June until the 1st of July 2012.

Interesting, but what are BeMyApp weekends?

• Focused on mobile apps development
• Gathering people having ideas, developers, marketeers,…
• They form teams and have 48 hours to develop their project
• Everybody can participate for free

You can find all details on www.bemyapp.com

Want to join one of the teams? Maybe you even have some ideas for sponsorship to keep the whole thing free? Or you’d like to be one of the judges?

Contact Cedric Couvreur directly and tell him the girl geeks sent you.

Together with luxury goods manufacturer Delvaux, Samsung is launching an exclusive version of its Galaxy Tab 10.1. The new Full White version of the Tab comes with a matching handmade Delvaux sleeve. To mark the launch, Samsung and Delvaux are
hosting an event at the Delvaux Atelier this Wednesday, the 18th April and - following last year’s initial launch of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 – we have the pleasure of inviting some girl geeks to join us at the event.

The programme of the evening:

• 19h00-19h45: Welcome drink + introduction
• 19h45-20h15 : Testimonial by product ambassador Tatiana Silva
• 20h15-20h30 : Elke Lahousse/Knack Weekend on women and technology
• 20h30-22h30 : Visit of the Delvaux atelier and reception

If you want attend the event, be quick as the available spots are limited and assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration is now open until Tuesday April 17, 15h00 via samsung@lewispr.com .

And last but not least: make sure you bring your Galaxy Tab 10.1 to the event, as everyone who brings a Tab 10.1 gets to take the exclusive Delvaux sleeve home.

Hope to see you there!

From our inbox, this message from student Sammy Vermeulen:

We are a couple of students who study communication management in Brussels and we
are trying to launch a magazine for successful tech girls. To make this project
happen, we need the help of women with a passion for technology, ICT and an interest
in all forms of communication. If this is you, and you feel like being part of our
test audience and sharing your highly appreciated feedback, please contact us ASAP
by sending a message to magazine4techgirls@hotmail.com.

If this sounds like you, do feel free to contact Sammy and her fellow students directly.

Le Podcast High Tech (BE_NL / BE_FR) focuses on high-tech news and trends. These podcasts are presented by a team of passionate computer and new technology specialists.

This Friday, on 06/04 as from 17.00 hours, in “The Plaza Hotel Brussels” (Boulevard Adolphe Max 118-126 Brussels) they’ll record their Dutch spoken edition for April 2012​​, including live streaming. For this session, Le Podcast Hightech is still looking for passionate Dutch speakers on any tech related topic.

We will first interview our guests and the traditional podcast start from 18h30: if you arrive between 17 and 18:30 please enter in silence. Want to know more? Contact Michel Godart directly (and yes, his email handle is also his mobile phone number).

Thank you for sharing this message.

Last year Saskia Van Uffelen (CEO Bull Belux) was elected as ICT woman of the year. Who won this year? And who will be the first to win Young ICT Woman of the Year?

Go and find out yourself at the award ceremony on 9 February in Brussels.
Want your name to be put on the guest list? Then contact Ghita Philipi and tell her the girl geeks sent you :-)

Solar Impulse is a Swiss long-range solar powered plane project that eventually hopes to succeed in the first circling of the earth with a piloted fixed-wing aircraft using only solar power. The project is undertaken by two Swiss: psychiatrist and balloonist Bertrand Piccard and businessman and pilot André Borschberg .

Fellow girl geek Stephanie Booth has just finalised the details of the blogger programme for the Solar Impulse’s visit to Brussels and is still looking for bloggers to participate.

Picure by Stephanie Booth http://www.flickr.com/photos/bunny/

Saturday 28 May 09:30-11:30 Breakfast discussion with both Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg. Inside the hangar in Brussels airport, where the Solar Impulse is currently parked, you’ll sit at a discussion table to have breakfast and ask your questions, talk about anything related to the project, film, photograph, blog, tweet, you name it. For 60 minutes, we will leave the two founders of the project at your mercy ;-)

Interested? Apply for the exclusive blogger/podcaster programme using this form.

Engineers, IT specialists, machine operators… only few of them are women. Belgium’s largest employers’ organisation and trade association Agoria wants this to change.
Therefore Agoria rolls out the red carpet for all the Technoladies.

Keynot speaker is globally renowned game designer Jane McGonigal (janemcgonigal.com, avantgame.com and twitter.com/avantgame). McGonigal is convinced that individuals who are used to tackling problems in computer games will also be more creative and faster at finding solutions to problems that might occur in real life.

Register now for this stylish female event, spiced up by the beats and dishes of our Lady DJ’s and the Bru Lady Chef of the Year 2011.

And if you are a man? You are most welcome too! We really need you to support our message… although during this event, all spotlights will be on the ladies!

On April 6th, 150 Belgian Developers will meet at Web Camp to learn and discuss about HTML5. In the dawn of the Internet Explorer 9 launch and looking at the effervescence on the browser market, Microsoft Belgium would like to invite you to meet some of the people designing the web of tomorrow and share your ideas with them during a cocktail reception.

Agenda

• Welcome speech (6:30pm) by our hosts Jean-Benoît Van Bunnen (IE9 Product Manager) and Katrien De Graeve (Developer Evangelist)
• Networking with finger food (7:00pm)
• Showcase (7:30pm) of some neat websites with IE9 on some of the latest and coolest devices available.

Interested? Register at http://www.beautyoftheweb.be/cocktail/

The European Center for Women in Technology , Belgian Senate members Marie Arena and Hassan Bousetta, and the JUMP network invite you to the Senate on the 4 March 2011 at 13:30 for a (free) seminar on Women in Science and Technology. This seminar aims to review the state of play of business actions until now and to draw up a list for future actions.

Women, who represent 60% of university graduates, are a reservoir of talent for science, technology and innovation. However, only 33% of them choose science or technology at higher education and very few make a career in this field. The majority of women in science are in the fields of medicine, biology or mathematics (to become teachers) and they often completely drop subjects such as computer science or civil and industrial engineering.

We must increase the attractiveness of science and technology subjects in order to increase the gender balance in this sector and bring innovation and economic growth.

Programme of the day
Fill out the online form to get in for free

Who will be the successor of Ingrid De Latte (Managing Director NextiraOne) as ICT Woman of the year?

>>  Vote now for the next ICT Woman of the year!

Voting starts on January 14th and you can take part until Wednesday  January 26th.

Registration for Bizcamp Antwerp on December 11, 2010 is now open! Register now and book your (free) spot at the hottest business event in Belgium.

Bizcamp is an unconference organized by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. It is all about learning from other entrepreneurs and about sharing what you know.

It is called an unconference because there is minimal organisation beforehand and the day itself is completely free for all participants. In exchange, participants help to organise, present, take pictures, clean up afterwards, etc.

Anyone can speak at Bizcamp – and everyone is encouraged to do so! There’s only one rule: no commercial speeches. You can’t speak about what you do at
work, but you can definitely share what you’ve learned while doing it.

Have a look at the presentations from the last Bizcamp Belgium to get an idea of the style and topics. Some examples:

• Financing your business
• Dealing with taxes and subsidies
• Things that went wrong and what we learned from them
• Tools that help us do business better
• Building and managing teams / hiring people
• Doing business abroad
• Managing work/life balance
• Sales and marketing techniques
• Starting your business

This is the third Bizcamp Belgium: the first one assembled almost 100 people at The Hub Brussels in late 2009, and the second nearly 70 people at SAP
Lounge in June 2010. This edition will take place at the gorgeous Den Bell building courtesy of the city of Antwerp.

The building (located at Francis Wellesplein 1, 2018) is not far from the public transport – train ride followed by a tram ride or a brief walk – and has plenty of parking which will be available to Bizcamp participants on the day free of charge.

Keep in mind: the number of tickets is strictly limited, and half of them is already gone! Register now at
http://bizcampantwerp.eventbrite.com/ – or if the latest batch of tickets is sold out, subscribe to the newsletter at http://www.bizcamp.be/newsletter/ to be
the first to hear about the next batch becoming available.

See you on December 11!

The Greenlight for Girls event is taking place this coming Saturday, from 8:00 to 16:00 (plus after parties!) at the
International School of Brussels. More details here:
http://bit.ly/greenlight4girls — and on http://www.greenlightforgirls.org. Please reblog, retweet, embed, forward… or in other words: use your network power to make sure this event gets as much media attention as possible. Thanks!

Agoria is Belgium’s largest employers’ organisation and trade association. They represent and help more than 1,600 companies in the technology industry.On 18 May 2010 Agoria is holding it’s annual Corporate Event from 5.30 pm on, at the Albert Hall in Brussels. And you, girl geeks, are invited!  Register here to get in for free and

• Take a global view with these international keynote speakers
  • technology expert Andy Mulholland: Technology driven markets – Business driven technologies
  • experienced business consultant Ashutosh Sheshabalaya: How to integrate Asia in one’s technological and industrial strategy
  • trendwatcher Sven Tollmien: The influence of the Outernet to different market places
• Find out what tomorrow’s world will look like
• Meet the new, first female, president of Agoria
• Shake hands with a hologram and hug Probo, the intelligent robot

Feel free to bring your laptop or smartphone – wifi will be available. If you tweet about this, please use the hashtag #agoria2010.

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

As I mentioned before, the European e-Skills Week awareness campaign seeks to inform students, young professionals and SMEs about the vast range of opportunities that ICT-related jobs present.

Go digITal!”, the e-Skills Week closing event, will take place on 5 March 2010 at the Square Meeting Centre located in the heart of Brussels. The event will be the culmination of the e-Skills Week.
“Go digital!” will present the results of the activities organised in more than 20 countries and reward the best practices observed during the campaign. It will also formulate recommendations to ensure sustainability of the e-Skills Week action.
Five parallel workshops will provide the audience with experienced testimonies from high level speakers ICT teaching careers, an exhibition area will give a practical view of what are IT jobs to young people and a Prize ceremony will reward the students participating in e-Skills Week competition. After the conference, an evening party will close the event in celebrating technologies!
Over 400 students from secondary and tertiary schools, teachers, professionals and ICT practitioners, SMEs, as well as high level figures from companies and from the European Commission and the Ministries of education will be gathered to exchange their experiences and their views to build a competitive Europe.

Interested? Register at http://eskills-week.ec.europa.eu/closing_event_registration to get in for free.

Where
@ Square-Brussels meeting centre
Glass Entrance – rue Mont des Arts straat
B-1000 Brussels

When
Friday 5 March 2010, 9-19.00
Evening party starting at 21.00

BetaGroup “Ladies on Stage” is looking for 1 or 2 female web/tech entrepreneurs

BetaGroup is a group of 2.100 Web Entrepreneurs in Belgium passionate about Internet, Software, Mobile Technologies and Online Media.

BetaGroup aims to connect Entrepreneurs, Creative Thinkers, Software Developers, Digital Marketers, Web Designers, Web Agencies, Advertisers, Publishers, VC’s and Business Angels to innovate together. It wants to provide a platform to meet each other, present your projects and foster new collaborations.

BetaGroup meetings are free and open to all the Web/Software/Mobile community .

For an upcoming edition themed “Ladies on Stage” Betagroup is still looking for 1 or 2 tech/web startups lead and presented by female entrepreneurs. Four have already applied, but it would be nice to have 5 or 6.

The meeting should attract 400 to 500 people from the Web/Tech sector.
So it is a good opportunity to gain visibility.

The day of the meeting should be March 30 (or April 2 – still to be confirmed) at the VUB in Brussels from 6PM to 11PM. Free entry, free parking and free drinks for everybody.

If you have never attended a BetaGroup before, I recommend to attend the meeting Tuesday next week (http://betagroup16.eventbrite.com/) so you know what to expect.

Interested? Use this form to present your startup.

JUMP (“Empowering Women, Advancing in the Economy”) offers women practical tools to help them realise their professional aspirations and supports companies and organisations that wish to promote better gender diversity within their management. More at www.blogjump.eu, www.forumjump.eu, www.womansacademy.be, and www.jobdays.eu.

For Women’s day, JUMP is organizing an event on the 4th March, at 18.00 at Mirano, Brussels. It’s an occasion to meet another
audience and other women. Presentations of several women’s networks will be followed by a cocktail and by a styling session.

Entrance fee is 8 euros, but let me know if you’d like me to arrange free entrance for you.

We’ve had a busy few months and it’s time to slow down a bit. But before we go: an overview of all the different 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 (276 members)
• Twitter List Brussels Girl Geek Dinners (following 128, followers 66)
• LinkedIn Group Brussels Girl Geek Dinners (110 members)
• Blog feed subscribe by e-mail (397 subscribers)
• Blog RSS feed (71 subscribers in Google Reader, not sure about the rest)