Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

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)

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?

The website (http://www.womansacademy.be/) is still under construction, but we’re announcing it anyway. Jump‘s Woman’s Academy has just launched, offering short professional workshops organised for women only and taught by a female expert. The Woman’s Academy has the objective to make women aware of the need to being continuously trained and to give them the means of doing so.
Who’s the target public?

• Women Entrepreneurs : starters, confirmed entrepreneurs, “helping  partner”, non working women with a entrepreneurial project
• Talented Women : for “re-entering” labour market after a career break or women changing career direction
• Executive Women : for managers and executive positions

And now for the good news: if you mention you are a member of Brussels Girl Geek Dinners, you get 10 € discount on the workshops from the Talented Woman’s Academy and 20 % on the workshops from the Executive Woman’s Academy.
Want to know the full programme? Email academy<at>blogjump.eu