Maryrose Lyons blogging since 2003...

Girl Geek Dinner Dublin

February 25, 2008 at 11:20 pm

** UPDATE: RTE1 News at 6 slotted in between the African elephants and the Father Ted on Craggy Island celebrations was me, Martha Rotter, Anna Nelson and Clare Dillon chatting as only we can chat about how great it is to be a Woman Working in Technology! If you blinked you missed it **

The 1st one is happening on Wed in Odessa Club and once again, our lovely friends at Microsoft should take a bow for organising and providing. Thank you in advance! For the record, while I am attending, I am in fact a sub section of the group: a chic geek!

I’ve been giving it a bit of thought about why these events are taking place all over the world. They were started by Sarah Blow, London Geek Girl Number 1 and their purpose is:

To provide a welcoming atmosphere and a platform for learning in an informal environment, to make technology accessible and to be of interest to all age groups and all people, particularly women. It is an opportunity for like-minded ‘girls’ to talk about technology over food and drinks.

The event is sponsored by Microsoft and is part of an initiative to get the females in technology together and get them communicating and creating their own communities.

Looking at the Geek Girl sites around the world, I’m excited to be involved with something that’s so new and global; keen to catch up with local Twitter buddies and meet some new faces (ie. those who are working for companies that ensure they are Too Busy to engage in any of this Twitter loveliness but who will be able to make it for this after hours dinner); and just a little sceptical as to where it’s all going to go. The other geek dinners around the world tend to have a speaker, but am not sure that’s so appealing to me. I’m a Chic Geek so not so sure I could hack listening to someone talk about an aspect of gaming or the finer points of a programming language…does there need to be a structure?

There is a bit of underlying yuckyness that I’m detecting about the geek dinners being used by recruiters for hiring purposes. One of the highlights of the Toronto round-up of their January dinner is that Savvica is hiring. Wuppy do. I hate it when good networking events get hijacked by recruiters.

But on the plus side, I’ve always thought that while there are a number of female only networking groups, we never truly get to network on the same level as men because they have all those golf, rugby and other sporting dalliances. Please don’t comment below about how women can have them too - no, we don’t. So I’ve never had a problem with female-only networking groups because they just bring our opportunities up to an equal number with the men. Now this girl geek thing is good because I don’t know that many guy geeks who do the golf thing (God the alliteration in this is killing me… I should go work for The Sun). So if it gives us a little peg up, then that’s all well and good.

Posted in Girl Geek Dinner |