Leeds Girl Geek Dinner

Guest blog post by Lisa Wisniowski Brand Communications Director at stickyeyes

Firstly I should start by apologising. As readers of the Culture Vulture you’ll be more than aware of the absolutely amazing events and gatherings happening right on our doorstep but, it’s only recently that I’ve fully embraced attendance at these events and blimey, turns out they’re rather good!

From Bettakultcha to snZero and Open Coffee to the ted2011 simulcasts there are more interesting, informative, inspiring events and people around than you can wave a stick at. So, it was with interest that I accepted an invite to the 8th Girl Geeks Dinner at Harvey Nichols, Leeds

For those who have not come across the event before, Girl Geeks was founded in 2005 by Sarah Blow , a self-proclaimed girl geek who got annoyed and frustrated about being one of the only females attending technical events. From an initial meeting of 35 people in London, fast forward a few years and Girl Geek Dinners are now taking place in Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The Leeds events (http://leedsgirlgeeks.com/), run by Carbon Imagineering’s Imran Ali and Linda Broughton, Head of nti are open to anyone working in digital media, computing, design, science, technology and social media and, you don’t have to be a girl to attend!

The latest event, timed to coincide with International Women’s Day featured keynotes from Leeds based blogger and researcher Shang Ting Peng and Sanaz Raji , a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds.

Shang Ting Peng is Hebe Media’s Head of Fashion and a graduate of the European Institute of Design in Barcelona. Introduced as a cool hunter, Shang spoke about ‘England Observing Diary’, a Facebook page targeted primarily at a Chinese audience interested in English fashion, food and architecture. Shang witnessed first-hand the power of profile and recommendation when Guardian Leeds ran a profile feature resulting in mainstream media pick up in the Far East including articles and television interviews. From a base of 6,000 fans, which in itself is no mean feat, the diary’s ‘likes’ rose to 50,000 in just one day with ‘England Observing Diary’ ranking third for most likes after Jackie Chan and Jet Li! They now have a book deal, due out this summer and last month the Facebook page had over 10m views, impressive figures!

Sanaz Raji spoke about her PhD research project which examines the Iranian Diaspora and their use of web 2.0 (Facebook, YouTube) and the largest Iranian community site, Iranian.com. Sanaz’s topical talk entitled ‘Satire, Sexuality and the Iranian Diaspora’ spoke about her country’s attitudes to women and minorities in general. Showing a video from Iranian.com, which is playing a pivotal role in the Iranian’s fight for the freedom to express themselves, Sanaz gave examples of women of all backgrounds who have stood up to demand women’s rights. Against the Iranian president’s remarks that “there are no gay people in Iran” Sanaz spoke of her hopes for women in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. A timely reminder that our own freedom shouldn’t be taken for granted.

The talks were accompanied by a great feast from the team at Harvey Nichols, mouth-watering pictures below, so a highly recommended evening for all.

Huge thanks to Imran (@imran) and Linda Broughton (@lindabroughton) for organising such a great event and Ally Manock for her extra notes on the evening.

The next dinner will take place in May so keep an eye on the website at http://leedsgirlgeeks.com/