News: A New Era for Girl Geek Dinners

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

This evening marks the fourth anniversary of Girl Geek Dinners, and the day that founder Sarah Blow hands the baton of the flagship London events to others to manage, as the ‘Girl Geek’ movement goes international.

What started as a networking meeting for London’s few women in technology to offer each other support has become a regular meeting for meeting both for women and men to discuss the future of technology.  (Any man can attend if invited by a female attendee.)

“Only one in five people in technology is female,” said Blow. “That’s a big issue for an industry which is not recruiting the numbers it needs. By offering support and role models in a way that’s also fun, we hope that those coming into the industry will stick with it, and those contemplating career choices will identify technology as an exciting possibility, busting out of stereotypes. The industry is packed full of creative, intelligent people who are happy to call themselves geeks, but who don’t merit some of the more negative stereotypes which prevail.”

Girl Geek Dinners have spread across the globe, and there are plans to register a charity. The long term vision of these events is to bring Geek (or if necessary Girl Geek) Dinners into schools, colleges and universities around the world to encourage people to embrace and explore a passion for technology, including those countries where technology is less pervasive.

“Social stereotypes are damaging the industry and must be broken down. We need to engage the media and attract social change. This is an opportunity to make changes that affect everyone, including those in the developing world,” added Blow.

The fourth Girl Geek Dinner is sponsored by Channel Four, and is taking place in London. Interviews with founder Sarah Blow can be arranged on request.

Notes to Editors

Girl Geeks Dinners have been running since 2004. They were founded by Sarah Blow, who is a technologist working as a community manager for innovative Twitter start up, Tweetmeme.

Contacts:

Sarah Blow

e: londonggd [at] googlemail.com

t: +44 (0) 7545 702325

Twitter @girlygeekdom

3 Comments

Other Links to this Post

1. WavesPR » News: A New Era for Girl Geek Dinners | tech-gals.com — August 26, 2009 @ 12:05 pm

2. WavesPR » Tweet Visualisations — August 26, 2009 @ 12:17 pm

3. WavesPR » Girl Geek Afterglow — August 27, 2009 @ 11:15 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment