Brussels Girl Geek Dinner

From Xpats.com Portraits – Clo Willaerts:

By establishing the Brussels Girl Geeks, I wanted to highlight other women who are using technology and I also hope to encourage girls to go for careers in IT. Our network goes far and wide beyond Brussels, including French-, Dutch- and English-speakers, and many of our meetings are not exclusively female because our members often bring their men along too.

We have a core of about 150 members, who are very active, and a larger group of about 500 who participate from time to time. They range from students in their twenties to career women in their fifties. Most are professionals working in creative jobs using technology, such as PR, marketing or programming. What we all have in common is our love of discovery and communication.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the group is that it’s never static. We constantly see new faces at our dinners as the word spreads. It’s very rewarding to stand at the entrance and welcome not only old friends, but also newcomers. That’s what keeps us dynamic and fresh.

Meisjes spelen jongens naar huis from Gazet van Antwerpen on Vimeo.

News article: Meisjes spelen jongens naar huis op Girl Geek Dinner (video) @ gva.be
[Update]: Girl Geeks staan hun mannetje in Red Dead Redemption @ chief.be

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!

Olja Petrovic has just uploaded the English version of her article about Girl Geek Dinners. There’s also an Italian version and the original article, in Croatian, which was published in Croatia in  Plan B magazine, number 16, January of 2009.

Everyone has probably felt as a minority, at least once, in an occasion where he or she should have theoretically been surrounded by kindred spirits. Sarah Blow went to a geek dinner where the men were treating the women, who weren’t very numerous, as if they all worked in advertising – and nobody even noticed that she is a software engineer. So she decided not to waste any time, and organized a similar event – a girl geek dinner – wishing to give the participants an opportunity, at least on that occasion, to switch the roles of majority and minority. Therefore it is possible for the male geeks to participate in the geek girl dinners, but only if invited by a girl. And each one can invite only one of them. The motto is “definitely does compute”, which does mean that she uses computers but also sounds as “you can be sure that I think with my own head”.

[To read the rest of the article, click here for the PDF, for other information and the page scans, go to this post]

Interesting (and funny) analysis of what a Girl Geek really is by Corinne Boulangier (RTBF, La Première) and Sylvestre Defontaine (Pure FM. In French.

Culture Club chronique 27/3/2009-Sylvestre DefontaineCorinne BOULANGIER

Update: Make sure to read the comments (including an answer from Sylvestre Defontaine) over at Kreatuur: Les geekettes sont-elles humaines? Réponse à Sylvestre Defontaine.

De Standaard – De ideale proefkonijnen (.pdf): “Vrouwelijke techneuten? Ze bestaan. Ze tetteren niet, ze twitteren. En ze komen maandelijks samen voor een ‘Girl Geek Dinner’. Zaterdag hielden ze dat op verplaatsing, in Londen. Wij stapten mee op de Eurostar.”

The girl geeks mentioned in the press article are @bnox  @imkedielen @lamazone @matuvu and @sasvangent . The mobile application talked about can be found at http://www.eurostar.com/girlsgeeks.
And for the record: we don’t consider ourselves feminists :-)

ImkeDielen had mentioned it before, but Gazet van Antwerpen has published a full page on the Brussels Girl Geek Dinner. Picture (by Cia Jansen) was taken during BGGD #7, and article (Girl Geek Dinners stijgend succes – U blogt toch ook?, by Aline Van der Borght) was published just before BGGD #8.

Thanks Stéphanie V for the hi-rez scan!

Some quotes (pardon the Dutch):

De opkomst was hoog en vrouwelijk. (Pietel.be)

Bij Duval Guillaume konden 60 dames en een paar pratende sjakochen terecht voor een hapje (hele lekkere broodjes en boterhammen met speculoospasta), drankje, praatje en een presentatie over artificiële inteligentie door Koen Vervloesem op het 5de Girl Geek Dinner. Ook Isabelle Peeters gaf een inspirerende uitleg over het managen van haar chaotische leven. (TenderFeelings)

Girl Geek Dinner number 5 already. I’m a geek not a freak. Out of the 5 Brussels Girl Geek Dinners, I have attended 4 till now. Luckily I missed out one, otherwise I couldn’t defend myself anymore when people call me a freak . (TheIceCreamDebate)

Maar dé ster van de avond was toch wel Rolly! Dit kleine muziekrobotje van Sony heeft ieders girl geek hartje gestolen. Die lichtjes, die move’kes! Of hoe een gadget ook écht schattig kan zijn… (FientjeGrasmachientje)

Ik ben verliefd geworden op Ronny, de Rolly van Sony. Ja, ik heb hem Ronny Solly gedoopt en niemand houdt mij tegen. Nah! (Verbeelding.org)

More on how to win Ronny in our next post…

Girl Geek Els Aerts was interviewed on Radio Donna. It was broadcast while we were watching the robots, but I’ve uploaded it for your convenience: Brussels Girl Geek Dinner #3 op Radio Donna.

Just a quick note to announce an interview with geek girls Britt, Ine and me in tomorrow’s De Morgen (Flemish newspaper). If you can scan and upload the article and/or relay the url of the online version to us, please drop a line in the comments.

UPDATE: download the article (in Dutch) through Mixette weblog: Mixette in de gazet and GirlGeek / Monuments by Ine Dehandschutter.

And for the sake of completion: there was an article in Het Laatste Nieuws last Monday, too. Will upload it here in the coming days.

UPDATE 2: download Mama is een Girl Geek (.pdf, 606k, Dutch). Thanks, Tante Annie!

FM Brussel radio will run a feature this afternoon on the second Brussels Girl Geek Dinner. I think the interview will run somewhere after 16:00. The programme is in Dutch and is called half en half.
If you don’t live in Brussels area, you can use the live stream to tune in.

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.

Pure FM: Ce soir dans Bang Bang: “QUESTION DE GENRE – HIGH TECH GIRLS : Bang Bang était au premier “Brussels Girls Geek Dinner” : un rendez-vous “girls only” (ou presque) pour les filles branchées IT: bloggeuses et autre chica’s actives dans le monde de l’internet. Une initiative plus que bienvenue dans un secteur où les filles restent encore très minoritaires.”

By the way, here’s an overview of the Dutch speaking radio stations that talked about the Girl Geek Dinner.
StuBru: Geek Girls: “Clo leert Peter een nieuwe term: pratende sacoche. Je hebt dat aan de arm, het is decoratief maar ook handig: je kunt er je sleutels in kwijt en zo…”

Donna: Girl Geek dinner: “Vanavond wordt voor het eerst in ons land een ‘Girl Geek Dinner’ georganiseerd. Organisatrice Clo gaf Ann deze morgen uitleg over ‘Geeks’, ‘blogs’, ‘Apple’,… . Enfin, dat probeerde ze toch… .”