Wellington Girl Geek Dinners

By Brenda Wallace, Catalyst IT and Geek Girl at Large

Wellington, New Zealand's first Girl Geek Dinner was held last week on the 12th of March 2008 and was a giant ball of fun and tech. Held at the Long Xiang restaurant on Dixon street, more than 50 Girl Geeks gathered to hear guest speaker "lightning talks" about a variety of geeky passions from customer usability and comic book design to Agile methodology and busting sales myths.

Originally started in London, these dinners are quickly becoming popular all over the world. Girl geek dinners are an opportunity for like-minded 'girls' to talk about technology over good food and to learn from some of their best fellow girl-geeks in Wellington. Attendees are usually geeks by profession such as software engineers, computer scientists, database experts, engineers and the like but anyone is welcome to attend as it's primary objective is socialise and network.

The organisers were surprised at the response the first dinner has received. All of the tickets were sold out in only 3 days, showing the demand in Wellington for such an event. Guys can also attend girl geek dinners provided they are invited by one of the women attending.

The lightning speakers were:
Sale Coe - Usability Believer
Sandy Mamoli - DBA and Project Manager.
Jo Hubris - Web-famous Wellingtonista blogger.
Sarah Lewis - Tech sales ninja.
Brenda Leeuwenberg - Digital Media-ite.
Amber Craig - Solutions Magician and Gaming Geek.
Heather Buchanan - Comic book geek, artist, and creator.

Much food and drink was consumed, new friends made and many hundreds of business cards changed hands. Everyone who attended last week's event left with swag bags containing a variety of goodies from tech companies and local businesses, including gifts from Google's Open Source Team, one of the sponsors of the dinners.

Girl Geek dinners are to be held quarterly in Wellington, with the next event to be held in August. Visit our website to learn more about attending or speaking at an upcoming dinner. becoming a sponsor or guest speaker for this event. You can also take a look at photos from the latest dinner.