I just had a great discussion with attendees of Media Camp Nottingham 4 on kids and technology. As I need to run to join my family, I will just include the slides and recording of the session, for now, hoping that I can add my points a bit later too! In the meantime, enjoy the bits below;) Thank you to the organisers for having me!

I know, I posted about it ages ago;) And yes, we did have our first event, however, we treated it as a pre-launch, basically initial meeting. But before I tell you more about the launch event, let me remind you the basics (taken from ):

The Girl Geek Dinners were founded on the 16th August 2005 as a result of who got annoyed and frustrated about being one of the only females attending technical events. She was tired of being assumed to be marketing, tired of constantly having to prove herself and decided that she just wanted a change and to be treated just the same as any other geek out there, gender and age aside.  After all to be geeky is to be intelligent, have passion for a subject and to know that subject in depth. It’s not at all about being better than others, or about gender, race, religion or anything else. Those things just detract from the real fun stuff, the technology, the innovation and the spread of new ideas.

So what did this geeky girl do to change the world of geeks and girl geeks everywhere… well she got in touch with a few well known bloggers, posted online about her idea of getting geeks to educate one another over dinner and then arranged the first girl geek dinner event with a little help from her friends. The first event had 35 people at it all from London and the surrounding area, shortly after people started to hear about the events and companies started sponsoring them to cover the food and drinks cost.

Then they started popping up in other UK cities as she trained others up in how to run the events, spreading the formula for them… so they then started popping up in Europe… and shortly after that over in Canada… Now they are starting to pop up in New Zealand and Australia. Who knows where will be next.

Our :

• To break down old fashioned social stereotypes.

• To identify routes around barriers to entry for anyone to get into technology.

• To encourage and nurture those interested in technology.

• To work with local schools, colleges and universities to encourage more women into the technology industry.

• To support those currently in the industry and work together to figure out the issues and the solutions.

• To include men, women and children in this journey…. and not exclude men from Girl Geek Dinner Events

Now, Girl Geek Dinners is a series of events currently active in many parts of UK, Europe and the globe, so I am really happy to see it kicking off in Oxford as well. On Tuesday, at 6PM we are meeting in Cowley Rd, at White October offices (thank you for sponsoring us, once again!) to discuss personal branding on-line, various tools for social media marketing and to network. Later on int he evening we will move to Cafe Tarifa for sponsored (by Oxford Innovation) drinks and further chat with live music in the background. I really hope this small but crucial for women in technology event will take off and turn into a regular occasion to share experiences, tips and business cards;) Join us on Twitter! To attend our Tuesday event go to the event page here. Really hope to see you there (boys are more then welcome, you just need to find a girl who will join you;)).

If you ask me, iPad is a device designed for kids (and if for grown ups then just because we ARE big kids in disguise). So when we talk about safe, but effective and in dept Internet usage for children Ipad apps become an increasingly important topic. I have found two interesting blogs dedicated to iPad apps for kids, iPadforkids and apps4kids. Over at Online Classes, there is a good list of learning apps for kids. TechRadar in the UK posted the best 10. Mashable includes kids apps in their usual updates, like this one on books re-designed for iPad. Now, I will obviously have my own opinions about various apps my 5-year-old is using, so let me start with just a few we really like, and maybe one or two we had to delete.

• First of all, Angry Birds – classing game for all ages. It’s brilliant, it’s funny, and it gives my son a great feeling of success. A simple thing, but the fact that he can go back to all previous levels help every time he gets stuck with the highest one.
• NASA app – a great solution to the issue of YouTube browsing (which cannot really be controlled). Here, everything happens within the app, so parents can be sure that the child accesses only kids friendly content.
• Kid Art for iPad – a great tool for kids creativity with few nice pre-defined themes and options to save creations easily.
• Drawing Pad – even better than Kid Art for iPad. Dawid loves the stickers idea and endless options for tools and colours.
• Intro to Math and Intro to Letters gave us a good start to accept the notion of learning on iPad. When faced with the choice of various action games, kids might think learning is boring. Those two little apps are very simple, visually friendly and engaging.
• Simon’s Cat iPad app – now, we love this one simply because we love Simon’s Cat.
• Lego Ninjago – we love it because we love LEGO;)
• Dinopedia by National Geographic – great app for dino lovers!
• And now we are getting more and more interested in apps related to books, but the only one we like so far is Peekaboo Forest.

That’s all from me – let me know, what YOU like, so we can test it too!;)

Voter Power Index is a site launched by the New Economics Foundation to help us decide on our referendum vote on the 5th of May. According to the site (I looked at my area and Oxford) the new suggestion of Alternative Vote would increase my influence in UK voting process, but the nef report still flags up huge inequalities in the entire voting system:

The Voter Power Index finds that moving to AV would mean:

• • An increase in the average power of UK voters from 0.285 of a vote to 0.352 of a vote (where a score of 1 is a fair vote). A rise of 23.5 per cent.

• • An increase in the number of very marginal seats from 81 to 125, an increase of 44 seats.

• • A small reduction of inequality in the power of votes with the most powerful fifth of electors going from having 21 times the power of the least powerful fifth down to 18 times.

I marvel the idea of the site, feeding from mySociety’s TheyWorkForYou database. It’s amazing that due to the access to this data set and pretty good search engine I am able to see the consequences of my vote on the 5th, but also flags up a deeper issue. Saying that someone should update the lists and stop sending my son invites to elections and referendums, please?;)

Oxford Twestival became a part of my life now, but last Thursday I have realised something very important: the people who created Twestival in Oxford made it such an extraordinary event! I know it’s mainly a charity event and I am really happy to see we have almost reached the target! But the point is it was sooooo good to see Alissa, Graeme, Jo-Ho, Markus, Nick, Colin and many other familiar faces joining us at this really small event. It was so good to share this event with @Zerolab and his friends too! It was very importnat to share ice-cream with @Darthberne and have a good chat.  It was great to work with @Truck_Store and see the event shaped into another “local” place to be. Here are the notes from the night, and we have a video write up on the way, but I really do not think the virtual experience can replace being there on the night. Saying that I remain endlessly grateful to Oleg, Paula, Ben and others who donated through JustGiving this way getting involved too – you are all part of this great movement. Big hugs to all of you!;)

Tom Steinberg from mySociety.org on Egyptian Revolution

It was a good event. And I do not feel so good after many events nowadays…it was an event really, really worth attending! As a social media marketer and occasionally engaged blogger, I get to attend events that are usually full of sales pitches, marketing slang and other “buzz”. Activism vs. Slactivism debate in Oxford was to the point, and almost most of the time deprived of strong self-promotion. *Sight* Yes, I know, sounds crazy hearing it from me, but real trust and brand loyalty, real respect originates from that particular feeling I had last night – calm, work and useful insights orientated discussion. OK, there were few moments of tension, but on overall I think we had a fruitful discussion. I liked the calm points on social media in the Middle East. I was really impressed with the majority of people knowing Morozov’s points and moving on to the next step – what can we really achieve with the new state of the Internet and various types of users/activist?! What works and what does not? And you know what I really did not miss the event – the usual discussions around terminology. You might think it’s irrelevant, but the amount of time wasted during many social media and Internet related events on the on-going arguments about the usage of “digital”, “social” or “ROI” completely freak me out. They lead nowhere. They mess up the flow of discussion. They are there mainly to showcase various individuals and their oratory skills, not actual solutions. When we heard and later discussed on Twitter social media ROI, stats and social capital in context of current large organisations like Oxfam, we all agreed that the middle ground between the measurable and the most effective but unpredictable or maybe more relationship orientated is extremely important. We are slowly moving away from dry numbers, but we still need to justify costs, maybe we always will have to? I am not sure. But it’s worth pushing the boundaries of traditional reporting and budgeting towards more creative, emotional and people driven engagement. I personally still think that numbers are great, as long as we understand their (in this case) emotional and word of mouth value. I guess it’s nothing new though, but worth repeating for those, who tend to navigate over to the new, the coolest, the buzziest plans or those who still only count clicks and likes;) I love Eric Lee’s summary: “we are all people, we all make mistakes, but we do not kill – we safe people’s lives”. We tend to forget that! So last night I had really great time! Sad to admit that I felt like in a sci-fi movie a bit – I do hope the majority of the nonprofit sector in the UK (and globally too) will share this approach in 5-7-10 years time. I really, really hope so! Tweets here, photos on Facebook.

I am having a bit crazy days nowadays, so my posts might be slow. This one is related to the event I attended last week! ActionAidUK has invited me to join their supporter evening on the 10th of March in celebrations of International Women’s Day. After Get Lippy campaign I was much in the mood of the topic, I must say.
http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649

The event was really good – and I think it is a good idea for a charity to connect with supporters this way! After the introduction, we have learned about the importance of women’s rights (raising confidence, helping with care – family, house ho, looking at culture – the most significant barrier due to the lack of rights, lack of understanding). ActionAidUK’s experience is to put the women and girls first – not excluding men, but recognising that the poorest of the poor are women. The organisation is supporting women to achieve the change for themselves, their family, community and their country. Gaining confidence and support from organisations working with women rights is crucial – so ActionAidUK is also helping to build those women movements. We have learned about Asha Singh, 37, heroine, activist working with the organisation in India, a lawyer by training, riding a bike to persuade people to value women as much as men. As she was talking to parents, boys and girls, she has become a role model for girls in the area. Later we moved on to women issues in Afghanistan. We watched a video in which Nasima Rahmani, a local worker stated that when she goes to communities to talk to women “men think we are empowering women against them”. Well, I guess it is a fact. ActionAid has also a paralegal programme – teaching women with strong leadership skills to help victims of violence. What I missed in the film though were…men. I would love to hear their voices, see their faces and learn their points of view as well as see how ActionAid works with men on the topic. (I also noticed that the event we attended was dominated by women – does it mean that mainly women supporters are interested in the topic of women rights? is it fair to say that is it only half of the story then?) What is the future according to ActionAidUK then? Women need to be educated, financially undefended and have their rights. To know “why is this happening to me?”

Next speaker, GB Adhikari, Country Director for ActionAid Afghanistan, working in that country since 2003 presented the achievements but also challenges of his work. He spoke about the National Solidarity Program – governmental program, ActionAid people are the people talking about the process. They elect the community people to be in charge of the community development process – and to ensure that 30% of this committee are women, so far 2,500 women were elected already. We were also discussing the marriage issue – forced marriage: approach: marriage> forced marriage> why does it happen seems to work the best. When asked if the war in Afghanistan affect their work, he responded: “Everything is possible to do, you just need to find a method, a way and the timeframe. Go to the community, talk to them, be with them, adopt their practices to become a part of the community, to be trusted.” Sounds like a great advise for everyone, really. We also learned more about the communication channels within the country to handle risk situation and ensure safety of staff too. What I thought of the speaker? I made a note: “What an inspiring, dedicated person!” I was really impressed with the local approach to the training (240 national staff currently as a result of local training programme as opposed to brining lots of expats.) When we talked about  ActionAid’s work in the UK Champion for International Violence against Women was mentioned, as well as Cross- Governmental Violence against Women and Girls Strategy and last year’s report on women rights. Patricia Lima, Head of PR at ActionAid talked about GetLippy campaign too. I guess to summarise the evening (I have to disclose that I left before its end!) I would like to quote one of the presenters, who said:

“If we aren’t equal everywhere, we aren’t equal anywhere…”

Big hug to ActionAid and Louise for the invitation! I really liked the event!