The very first Barcelona Girl Geek Dinner was hosted last night. There were 115 people signed up to the event (so it was a little oversubscribed) and we had 85 turn up on the night. There were a few very cheeky guys who decided to try and get on without their invitations to attend from a girl so we stuck strictly to the rules. That’s not to say that there weren’t guys at the event… there were!
The evening started off with reception drinks, then the sit down dinner followed by the panel session which I hosted, and then desert and coffee. It was all very civilised but I did notice that one people were on a table they didn’t really move about and mix. I guess the simple answer next time will be to force people to move about one way or another…. or put people randomly on tables where people don’t acually know each other or something. Any ideas are always good. The venue was a good size and we had a complete sound system.
Our speaker panel last night consisted of:
Helen Duguid, Independent Consultant working on EveTech.com
Catherine Heller, Microsoft
Kate Gregory, Gregory Consulting Ltd.
Cyra Richardson, Microsoft
My poor speakers had to put up with some of my very difficult questions including some about the industry and some key tips for females in tech. I think they had some fun with it all though… I had them describe what they thing of when they think of the words girl geek and geek… it was interesting to see what the different responses were. I think there were a lot of different ideas thrown around and the general concensus was someone with a passion for a subject area and someone who is obsessive about that area. There was none of the old fashionned ideas that geek is one of those greasy long haired people who doesn’t wash and sits on their own in the dark scheming and plotting things. Long gone are the days of the old wierd negative connotations of geek. I think we have finally reclaimed the phrase! Yay!
There was also a discussion that we had about do we want to segregate the females in technology and the girls who were there were of the same mind as quite a few of the guys that I have spoken to over the past few days that they don’t want to be segregated or treated differently. Females should be treated with the respect and understanding that you would give anyone. They are not special, and they are not different… they have had the same training as the guys, they have the same passion for technology or they wouldn’t be in the jobs. The issue at the moment is they aren’t treated that way and people are wondering if there is actually a place for something link girl geek dinners to get the guys to become informed properly about what the girls want. The girl geek dinners like to get the guys involved as well as we think that they have some valuable insights into what they perceive to be issues for themselves and for women… it was good to see last night that most of the content of the evening was of interest to the guys who attended as well. i didn’t see too many bored faces in the audience.
I haven’t seen any photo’s from the evening so far and I forgot that I had my camera with me so if anyone has any pics from the evening feel free to send them to me and I will add them onto the site.
Oh yeah… I also got caught by the Microsofties for the TechEd live site and they did a short 5 minute recording of me chatting away about how the girl geek dinners started. You will find the little vid here. Have fun… i’ve not even seen it yet… :S There will also be a channel 9 video coming online as soon as it can get online which has a few of the different UK community groups on it and some comments, ideas and such for starting, running and attending events.
I’ve been hoping for an excellent post regarding the very first Girl Geek Dinner in Barcelona and early this morning in Toronto TA DA… There it was!
85 was a great turnout!
Great job Sarah and hope you’re having a ton of fun and meeting wonderful people!