Next Dinner
Bristol GGD #28 – Girl Geeks visit Bristol Robotics Laboratory
Wednesday 26th June 2013
Our June dinner is being held on Wednesday 26th from 6.30pm at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory at the University of the West of England.
There will be six speakers talking about their work in the Lab. Food and drink will be provided courtesy of UWE’s Faculty of the Environment and Technology.
Read more and sign up here
http://girlgeeksvisitbrl.eventbrite.co.uk/
It is important that you register if you wish to attend.
Bristol GGD #27 – Girl Geeks discover Biochar
Wednesday 22nd May 2013
Our May dinner is being held on Wednesday 22nd at the University of Bristol from 6.30pm.
The speaker will be Melanie Bennet from the Bristol Biochar Foundation. ‘Biochar’ is a blanket term for charcoal when it is used for particular purposes, especially as a soil amendment.
This event is more science-oriented than a lot of our previous events have been, so will be a very interesting change. Please feel free to invite anyone who you think might be interested, including students.
Read all the details and register here:
http://girlgeeksdiscoverbiochar.eventbrite.co.uk/
Bristol GGD #26 – Girl Geeks at ACCU 2013
Thursday 11th April 2013
Our April dinner is being held on Thursday 11th in conjunction with the ACCU 2013 conference.
The event starts at 7pm for 7.30pm, at the Bristol Marriott Hotel City Centre. A few female IT professionals will talk briefly about themselves and their jobs. There will then be time for discussion and networking.
Read more and register
http://girlgeeksataccu2013.eventbrite.co.uk/
Bristol GGD #25 – Brainbox at Nokia
Wednesday 20th March 2013
This month we’re heading back to the Nokia building as they have kindly agreed to host us again. Nokia will be providing some food and drink for the event but not all so if you would like to bring a dish to share then please feel free to do so. This event will be on a Wednesday instead of our usual Thursday.
Our speaker this month will be Dr Tracy Johnson – a career, confidence and study skills coach who, with her company, Brainbox Coaching works with private clients as well as businesses to enhance performance across a wide range of areas. Tracy is also a qualified combat instructor, teaching regular women’s self-defence classes for the Sweaty Betty sportswear chain, for which she is a Brand Ambassador. Tracy is also a published author on careers, education and wellbeing topics for publications such as OM Yoga magazine and MindBodyGreen, and is currently writing a book on careers in the science sector. In the next twelve months, she will begin training as a health coach and yoga teacher, intending to offer a more holistic approach to coaching to her clients.
At our event Tracy will be sharing the coaching skills she uses with her clients to develop confidence across a range of situations, such as meetings, presentations and networking, that can be used to help any woman feel more at ease as a freelancer. As a self-protection instructor, Tracy will also be offering tips for safe solo business travel, as well as for defusing any tricky situations
The entrance to the building is between Tesco Express and Reed Recruitment on Wine Street. The event starts at 6:30pm and the main door of the building will be locked at 8pm so if you are going to be late make sure you arrive before 8pm!
As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered! If you can’t make it please let us know for catering.
Sign up here: brainboxatnokia.eventbrite.co.uk
www.brainboxcoaching.co.uk
brainbox on facebook
twitter: @brainboxcoach
Bristol GGD #24 – 3rd Birthday Drinks at the Watershed Bristol
Thursday 21st February
This month it’s Bristol Girl Geek Dinners’ third birthday!
We’ve decided to keep it informal with drinks at the Watershed and a chance just to chat and talk about geeky things instead of having food and a speaker. Follow our twitter feed or facebook page to find out where we are sitting on the night!
The event starts at 7pm - As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered!
Sign up here: girlgeekbirthday.eventbrite.co.uk
Bristol GGD #23 – Bristol University
Thursday 24th January
Our first event of 2013 is being very kindly sponsored by the University of Bristol. Our speaker is Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova, a reader in Applied Mathematics at the University of Bristol.
As an applied mathematician, the nature of Krasimira’s research is multidisciplinary. She is focusing on projects that could make a difference to experimental scientists and potentially society through the development of new techniques and understanding for interrogation of living systems. Her research is done in collaboration with scientists from different disciplines and different countries.
Krasimira has been awarded e number of research grants (as PI and Co-I) on modelling physiological systems at various levels – sub cellular (gene regulatory networks and ion channels), cellular (excitable systems) as well as cognitive architectures (interpersonal coordination dynamics). She has given a number of invited talks at prestigious institutions including: National Institutes of Health, Rockefeller University, Mathematical Biosciences Institute at Ohio State University, and John Innes Centre. Her international expertise in biomathematics has been recognized by electing her to serve as a member on the Organization for Computational Neuroscience (OCNS) conference review committee in 2011 and 2012.
The event starts at 6:30 for 7 – And is in the Queens Building at Bristol Uni. When you enter the building turn right and go up the stairs – at the top of the stairs turn left and go through the first set of doors 1.18 is the first room on your left. We will endeavour to get there early and put up signs so you can find it easily. As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered!
Sign up here: geeksatbristoluni.eventbrite.co.uk
Bristol GGD #22 – ForgeRock
Wednesday 12th December
A great event this month in a great location – I know it’s close to Christmas and short notice but the buffet selection looks amazing and we’ve got yet another great speaker lined up for you.
Our hosts this month are ForgeRock – a Silicon Valley startup and global open source vendor. Backed by one of the world’s most prestigious investors who fund the likes of Facebook and Groupon, ForgeRock has just launched its UK HQ in Bristol’s Queen Square. They were worried about squeezing us all into their office so they’ve booked a function room at the nearby Bristol Hotel for this event. Forgerock are keen to expand their network of contacts in Bristol and are interested in recruiting locally.
Our speaker for the evening is Nathalie Hoet, a Support Engineer at ForgeRock Bristol.
After finishing her degree in Mathematics, Nathalie worked for 10 years in the Financial Markets. Her job was an interesting mix of business awareness and algorithmic programming. Wishing to refocus her career towards computing, she enrolled as a part-time student at Birckbeck College in London and gained a MSc in Computer Science.
A couple of years later she took a career break and spent some time looking after her daughters. Returning from an extended maternity leave proved to be an opportunity to launch into a new fascinating world, leaving banking behind to join a team full of talented, enthusiastic and innovative IT professionals.
The event starts at 6:30 for 7 with lots of food and good company – As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered!
Sign up for this event here: girlgeeksandforgerock.eventbrite.co.uk
Bristol GGD #21 – Patent Talk
Thursday 29th November 2012
Another exciting speaker this month and a very interesting subject – have you ever thought of getting a patent for one of your geeky ideas or inventions?
Cerian Jones is an intellectual property lawyer who specialises in technical patents and has lots of funny and interesting stories to tell us about the things she gets up to. The food for this event is being sponsored by Cerian’s employers,UDL Intellectual Property LLP the event is being hosted by the City of Bristol College.
More about Cerian:
“After gaining an honours degree in English, I went on to gain an M.Sc. and PhD in Computer Science (Durham Uni). After 11 years of lecturing in Computing Science at a Canadian university, I went to law school back in the UK and ended up combining all my technical, legal and language skills by joining the patent profession with UDL Intellectual Property LLP (patent and trademark attorneys).
“Based in Cardiff and Bristol, I specialise in the protection of computer-related inventions although I also have a lot of cases involving mechanical inventions as well. One of the great things about my job is that I never quite know what is going to land on my desk from one day to the next. Today I could be working on protecting some hi-tech piece of software, and tomorrow I could be looking at the potential infringement of a patented commode! The variety is challenging, the inventions are fascinating. I’ll bring some examples along to show you at the girl geek dinner!”
The event will be held on the last Thursday of the month again instead of the third – in room 3C4 at the City of Bristol College – the same room where we held events #14 and #16- if you haven’t been there before you go through the archway and it’s straight in front of you, across the courtyard. The event starts at 6:30, and UDL will be providing the food and drinks.
Sign up for this event here: geekpatenttalk.eventbrite.co.uk
Bristol GGD #20 – Meet Bloodhound
Thursday 25th October 2012
This month we’ve got one for all the engineers and car enthusiasts amongst us as we meet Bloodhound – the Super Sonic thousand-mile-per-hour car that is being developed in Bristol.
Our main speaker for this evening will be Jenna Gaff – an engineer on the Bloodhound project:
“I am originally from Edinburgh but I have lived in Bristol for the last 2 and half years on and off. I finished my studies at the University of Edinburgh for a Masters in electrical and mechanical engineering last year. I feel privileged to have such a cool graduate job! I have many different responsibilities on the project from car performance analysis to drawing release to cleaning rotas…I never have two days the same!”
Bloodhound are on a limited budget so although they will be hosting the event at their tech centre, which is down near the SS Great Britain, we will all be bringing our own food – this worked really well last time we did it so bring a dish to share and maybe a tupperware box for the leftovers – seriously, I can’t eat it all! The event will start at 6:30pm.
As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered!
Sign up for this event here: girlgeeksmeetbloodhound.eventbrite.co.uk
More info about Bloodhound SCC here: www.bloodhoundssc.com
Bristol GGD #19 – Brightpearl Buffet Bonanza
Thursday 20th September 2012
This month’s event is being sponsored by Brightpearl, a company that produces cloud-based business management software designed to help independent retailers to sell more and sell better. The software integrates all of a business’s sales channels (website, physical shop and online marketplaces) with their back-office software (stock control, accounts, CRM, order management and more) into a single system. This process improves efficiency through real-time data transfer and eliminates the need for duplicate data entry – with increased data accuracy through a reduction in human error and improved customer satisfaction through streamlining the sales process. Brightpearl frees up vital resources that can be put towards growing businesses instead.
The evening’s talk will be about Software Development and what it takes to make computers do stuff.
Our main speaker this month will be Angela Heenan. Angela hails from Ireland and has been in Bristol for 2 and half years. She started working with Brightpearl 2 years ago as a Java Software Developer when there was around 15 people working for Brightpearl and now there are nearer to 70 people working for Brightpearl! ‘When she started she was working on the development of the Brightpearl API. Currently, she is a Development Manager with which entails coordinating the dev team and fortnightly releases. There will also be some guest speakers who are software developers in other companies.
Brightpearl can be found on the First Floor of New Bond House, Bond Street (formerly Newfoundland Street), BS2 9AG Which is directly across from the back of House of Fraser in Cabot Circus. The event will start at 6:30pm.
As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered!
Please register for this event so we know how many people to cater for. Sign up here: brightpearlbuffet.eventbrite.com
Bristol GGD #18
Harbourside Trail – Thursday August 23rd at 6.30pm for 6:45pm – meet outside the M-Shed
Sorry for the lateness of organising this one – we asked what everyone wanted to do and there were so many great ideas and suggestions we had to have a think about what was best and when was the best time to do it, which took ages! As it’s the summer hols we wanted to do something informal so those of us with children could bring them along too. We have decided to do part of the Bristol Harbourside Heritage Trail, taking in lots of Bristol’s interesting engineering heritage and hopefully ending up somewhere for a drink together afterwards.
We are going to walk the first part of the trail which starts outside the M Shed and ends up at Cumberland Basin. I have made this into a PDF for you to download and bring along (here) If it’s raining really badly we may just skip the trail and go straight to the pub, but fingers crossed for one of those fabulous sunny Bristolian evenings like the one in the photo below.
The plan is to meet outside M Shed at 6:30pm to start the walk at 6:45pm. You can find details of how to get to M Shed here – entry to M Shed is free so if you’re at a loose end before 6:30pm then you might want to go and check that out as well!
As always, we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered!
We’ve got some cracking events lined up for September and October and if you have a suggestion for a venue or a speaker to take us up to the end of the year then we’d love to hear from you.
Sign up for this event here: harbourtrail.eventbrite.co.uk
Bristol GGD #17
Nibbles with Nokia!
This month we’re excited to have been invited to the offices of Nokia in Bristol for a special evening of sushi and geekery on Thursday 19th July.
Our speaker on this occasion will be Claire Walkley, from Nokia who describes her role as: “Turning ideas into reality (or getting the cool stuff out of geeks heads and into the hands of consumers)”
Claire has been working in IT for over 10 years, she maintains she is not a geek at heart, while working her way up via support roles, testing, release and finally project management. This does tend to mean she is known for ‘thinking like a user’, since she has spent most of her working career being yelled at by them when things go wrong.
Bridging the tricky (and sometimes uncomfortable) position between geeks and ‘real people’ she prides herself on being just technical enough to understand what’s going on, while maintaining enough humanity to be able to explain what it means to ‘normal’ people. Working currently as a Technical Programme Manager at Nokia in Bristol, this has definitely pushed her to the limits of her capabilities in this area.
She is an ITIL Expert and dabbles in Prince2 while trying to make all that fit in an Agile environment. She also makes a mean paella and takes most of her frustrations out in the swimming pool”
Nokia will be providing sushi for this event with both regular and vegetarian options – the entrance to the building is between Tesco Express and Reed Recruitment on Wine Street. The event starts at 6:30pm and the main door of the building will be locked at 8pm so if you are going to be late make sure you arrive before 8pm!
We still have a prize to give away this evening left over from last month’s brilliant Geek Chic event, a facial from Laura de Paz the makeover lady – and if anyone would like to do a Pecha Kucha presentation of their research at this event we are always interested to hear about what you are up to!
As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered!
Thanks to everyone who came to last month’s Geek Chic event, bringing food to share and sparking a lot of interesting debate! We’ve had lots of positive feedback from this event and hope to make it an annual occurence.
Sign up here: nibbleswithnokia.eventbrite.com
Bristol GGD #16
Geek Chic! This month’s event is something a bit different! We may be geeks but we are still girls!
We’re having a geek fashion special – with a talk from Bristol’s friendliest award-winning style expert, Sam Bell (left).
Plus we’re having a free raffle for some fashion-related prizes we’ve got ten ‘Geekette’ t-shirts from Telerik to give away (plus a software .net developer tools software licence worth £500) and your chance to win a makeover from a qualified beautician during the evening!
We don’t have a sponsor for the food this time so please bring a dish to share – salad, crisps, nibbles or a bottle of wine or a soft drink. Cups and plates will be available.
The event will be in room 3C4 at the City of Bristol College – the same room where we held event #14 – if you haven’t been there before you go through the archway and it’s straight in front of you, across the courtyard.
We’ve got a cracking sponsor lined up for July’s event so we’ll be able to tell you more about that on the night as well.
As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered! Hopefully the girliness of this event will have them running for the hills anyway.
Wednesday 20th June at 6:30pm – raffle to be drawn at 7pm – sign up here:
http://geekfashion.eventbrite.co.uk/
Bristol GGD #15
This month we’re keeping it casual with drinks in the Watershed on Thursday 19th April from 7pm on – sign up here
Past Events
Bristol GGD #14
This month’s event is being sponsored by TVS, a company that provides tools and services in software testing and hardware verification. From methodology consultancy and training, through to execution onsite or offshore – TVS works with you to develop a solution to match your product testing needs.
The event is being hosted by the City of Bristol College and our speaker this month is Nat Alt (Nat Al-Tahhan):
Nat is a freelance designer, illustrator and co-founder of Opposable Games. The work she does is broad and varied, covering traditional branding, web & UI, character design and art assets for games, illustration and live-drawing for events.
Just off the plane from California where she was live drawing the TED 2012 conference and with a video game funding pitch imminent, Nat will share where ambition, humour and a mule-like stubbornness has landed her (she’ll probably talk about cake quite a lot as well).
Following on from the success of our short ‘Pecha Kucha’ presentations from PhD students at Event #12 we also have several slots available for anyone wishing to give a short presentation about their PhD progress. Please contact us through our blog if you are interested: bristolgirlgeekdinners.com
As always this event is free and men are welcome AS LONG AS THEY ARE INVITED BY A GIRL GEEK – if male please state who invited you when registering for this event. We don’t want to be outnumbered! Places are limited so please register your interest and do let us know if you can’t make it so your place can be made available to someone else if necessary.
Wednesday 14th March 6:30pm for 7pm
Register for this event here:
http://girlgeekswithnatalt.eventbrite.com/
PLEASE NOTE: MEN ARE NOT ALLOWED AT THESE EVENTS UNLESS INVITED BY A GIRL GEEK. YOU CANNOT JUST REGISTER AND SHOW UP OF YOUR OWN ACCORD IF YOU DO SO YOU WILL BE TURNED AWAY.
Nat:
http://natalt.co.uk
or @NatAltDesign
Opposable Games:
http://opposablegames.com
TED:
http://blog.ted.com/2012/03/01/live-drawing-ted2012-with-nat-al-tahhan
TVS:
http://www.testandverification.com
Bristol GGD #13 – February 16th 2012
This month’s event is being sponsored by SETsquared – The SETsquared Partnership develops new businesses from university research (‘spin-outs’) and supports early-stage, technology companies with high growth potential from the wider business community. Their business acceleration centre offers a fantastic service to start-up businesses yet very few of these have included female technologists and they would like us to help redress the balance.
The event is being hosted by the Pervasive Media Studio which is based in the Watershed – The Pervasive Media Studio is a creative technologies collaboration between Watershed, University of West of England and University of Bristol.
Our speaker will be Verity Alexander from the Pervasive Media Studio:
Verity is responsible for curating and managing the Pervasive Media Studio, promoting and coordinating the vibrant community of residents and partners and supporting the innovative portfolio of work that is developed here.
A key part of her role as Producer is to document and disseminate the research undertaken by collaborators.
With a diverse background in public exhibition across the visual arts, live art, film and performance, and working in the public sector funding innovative digital businesses, Verity is passionate about championing all things creative, experimental and unexpected. She is currently hoping to up her geek girl credentials by taking on the Codeacademy ‘Code Year’ challenge and trying to understand the difference between a ‘for’ and a ‘while’ loop!
Following on from the success of our short ‘Pecha Kucha’ presentations from PhD students at Event #12 we also have several slots available for anyone wishing to give a short presentation about their PhD progress. Please contact us if you are interested.
Dinner at this event will be a selection of wraps, fresh fruit and brownie squares with tea and coffee or you can also buy drinks at the Watershed bar if you fancy something stronger!
As always this event is free and men are welcome as long as they are invited by a girl geek – we don’t want to be outnumbered! Places are limited so please register your interest and do let us know if you can’t make it so your place can be made available to someone else if necessary.
Thursday 16th February 6:30pm for 7pm – The Pervasive Media Studio is based in the Watershed. Visitors should come to Watershed Box Office where they will be directed through the bar.
Bristol GGD #11 and #12 – January 2012
We’re kicking off the new year with two events in January:
Bristol GGD #12 – Pizza with Infineon
The second of two events in January. This event promises to be lots of fun. It’s being hosted by Infineon from their offices in Stoke Gifford in Bristol’s Silicon Gorge. The offices are close to Bristol Parkway station, located behind Esporta Fitness Centre in Stoke Gifford.
Infineon are sponsoring the event and will be providing us with pizza.
The Speaker at this event will be Dr Constance Fleuriot
Dr Constance Fleuriot is currently a Research Associate at the Digital Cultures Research Centre, part of the University of the West of England based in The Pervasive Media Studio. She is working with Professor Jon Dovey on an AHRC funded Knowledge Transfer Fellowship investigating the language, aesthetics and value of pervasive media.
Constance has always been interested in playing with interesting things when she has time, which probably qualifies as geek behaviour. For this geek girl talk she will talk about some of the things she has liked or used over the years, not just for playing.
At this event we would also like to offer the opportunity for any female PhD students to come and give a short talk about their work – max 5 minutes each – if you are interested in doing so then please contact us to arrange this by e-mailing: bristolggd@googlemail.com
The event is on Thursday 19th January at Infineon – 6:30pm for 7pm www.infineon.com
See below for our other event
Bristol GGD #11 – Wikipedia Birthday Editing Party
Following on from the success of our Girl Geeks vs Wikimeet event back in August, we are teaming up with Wikipedia again, this time to bring you a hands-on editing event, at the University of Bristol.
This event will run from 1pm until 5pm on Sunday 15th January at the Virtual Reality Centre, Room 1.06, University of Bristol Merchant Venturers Building. Experienced Wikipedians will be on hand to help you explore how to edit Wikipedia, so please bring a laptop with you.
It is also Wikipedia’s birthday on the 15th January so Wikipedia will be providing the nibbles and hopefully another fabulous Wikipedia cake.
Places on this event are limited so please only sign up if you are sure you can come and if you need to cancel do let us know for numbers. It is going to be difficult to get into the building on a Sunday so I will contact attendees with a mobile number nearer the time to ensure that you are all able to get into the building and enjoy the event.
Bristol GGD #10
Back to the Watershed for our final event of the year – Girl Geek Drinks on Thursday 1st December. Our first dinner of next year will be in January and we will announce all the details of that soon.
If you are interested in helping out with Bristol Girl Geeks or have ideas for venues, dinners or speakers or you’d just like to socialise with a gang of friendly, like minded individuals then please come along!
As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered!
Bristol GGD #9
So after our brilliant event with Wikimedia in August we are determined to keep the ball rolling and have decided to alternate dinner with drinks every other month.
This means that for our next event on 22nd September we’ll be meeting in the Watershed for drinks and an informal chat. If you’re interested in helping out with Bristol Girl Geeks or have ideas for venues, dinners or speakers or you’d just like to socialise with a gang of friendly, like minded individuals then please come along!
As always we do not exclude men, but they must be accompanied by a Girl Geek so we don’t get outnumbered!
Please register your interest so we can get an idea of numbers:
Bristol GGD #8
Date: Thursday 18th August 2011 Time: 7.00pm
Location: The Merchant Venturers’ School of Engineering, Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol
For our next event – something very special! We are teaming up with Wikipedia to present a Girl Geeks vs Wikimeet event!
Wikimedia (the parent organisation of Wikipedia) contacted us a few months ago as they wanted to encourage more women to edit Wikipedia – there is currently around a 13 vs 87 % gender split in Wikipedia editors in the UK and they wondered if we could do anything to help.
As you probably know – anyone can edit Wikipedia but it takes a bit of practice and understanding of the basic protocols and principles to get started – so this is why we want to hold this event and encourage more participation. A Wikimeet is a general gathering of Wiki geeks who like to get together and chat informally about Wiki things, so we decided to combine forces and put on this event to enlighten, inform and inspire more women to become involved.
As usual, men are welcome to the event as long as they are invited by one of our female participants. We are also want to invite non-geeky females who might simply be interested in editing or writing for Wikipedia – so if you know one of those please bring her along! Wikipedia are providing us with a buffet and a Wikipedia cake!
Our speaker is the trailblazing female Wikipedian Fiona Apps; Fiona is an administrator on the English Wikipedia and a member of Wikimedia’s Volunteer Response Team. She first began editing in 2007, fixing spelling errors and adding small trivia to articles, but now works with articles that appear on the front page. She has also assisted Wikimedia, the charity behind Wikipedia, with their 2010 fundraiser; connecting with users and the public through social media. When not improving Wikipedia online, she helps with University Outreach for Wikimedia UK and has helped to create the first Wikipedia Society at Imperial College, London. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and is currently building her writing career.
Please bring your laptops to the event as we will be holding a hands-on Wikipedia editing session as part of the evening – with lots of Wikipedians on hand to help.
The event is free. Please register before Wednesday 17th of August.
If you are interested in helping us run Girl Geek Dinner Bristol please contact us through our blog and come and meet us at 6pm, before the event starts – to discuss possible roles and future events.
Bristol GGD #7
Date: 23rd March 2011 Time: From 6.00pm, talk at 6.30pm
Location: University of Bristol, Department of Computer Science, Merchant Venturers Building, Woodland Rd, Bristol BS8 1UB
Professor Ann Blandford gave us a brilliant talk on an unusual topic: Designing to facilitate serendipity!
The Merchant Venturers’ School of Engineering, Department of Computer Science 
hosted and sponsored this event!
Ann Blandford is Professor of Human–Computer Interaction in the Department of Computer Science at University College London, and Director of UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC). She has a first degree in Maths (from Cambridge) and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence (from the Open University). She started her career in industry, as a software engineer, but soon moved back into academia, where she developed a focus on the use and usability of computer systems. Ann leads research projects on human error and on interacting with information, with a focus on modelling situated interactions. She has over 150 publications in international, peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. She has been technical programme chair for several conferences, the most recent being NordiCHI 2010, and is currently Chair of the BCS/CPHC Distinguished Dissertations Committee.
Bristol GGD #6
Date: Thursday 27th January Time: From 7.00pm
Location: Watershed, Harbourside, BS1 5TX Bristol
This year we’re happy to announce we are back and we’re determined not to lose momentum. To start the year we’re going to have an informal social event at the Watershed in Bristol this will be on Thursday 27th January at 7pm.
Bristol GGD #5
Date: Monday 21st June 2010 Time: From 6.00pm
Location: The Hole in the Wall, 2 The Grove, Queens Square, Bristol, BS1 4QZ
To celebrate the first day of Summer, we had our first night out, and even the sun decided to come along!
Bristol GGD #4
Thank you again to all of you for this brilliant evening!
Many thanks to our sponsor STEM SW for making this event possible in such a beautiful venue.
Date: 20th May 2010
Location: Engineers’ House, The Promenade, Clifton Down, Bristol BS8 3NB Map and Directions
Josephine works in gender and food security within international development. Which basically means she gets paid to figure out why people don’t have enough food to eat, how to move people from welfare into self-sufficiency and the theory that the reduction of poverty cannot be done without the full uncompromising leadership of women. She started her career through Engineers Without Borders Canada and started her school career with two BSc’s in Biology and Psychology. Her whirlwind career has taken from Zambia, to Ghana, to the UN in Switzerland and finally Bristol! She’s now working as a research consultant at theIDLgroup.
Bristol GGD #3
The e-Office offered us a beautiful venue for the dinner and Infineon sponsored some pizzas and chocolates!
Date: 29th April 2010 Time: Registration from 6.00pm
Location: e-Office, 11-19 Wine Street, Bristol, BS1 2PH
Dr. Julie Greensmith from Nottingham University gave us a brilliant talk about how computer science can be used to detect people’s emotions and how that is applied to different things, such as the design of roller coasters!
Julie Greensmith is part of the Intelligent Modelling and Analysis Group within the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham. She is currently researching the development of an immune inspired algorithm, the Dendritic Cell Algorithm and the application of intelligent methods and data mining to ‘thrill & fear’ discrimination. This means she gets to ride a lot of rollercoasters, all in the name of research! Her work with Artificial Immune Systems involves both abstract modelling of the immune system for the purpose of constructing novel algorithms and modelling of the immune system to figure out how select mechanisms actually function. In particular Julie is interested in the Danger Theory and the function of the innate immune systems, in particular Dendritic Cells.
Bristol GGD #2
Our sponsor for the event was the University of the West of England 
. We had a very nice buffet, especially the cake!
Date: 25th March 2010 Time: Registration from 6.30pm
Location: UWE – Frenchay Campus – Street Café
Ana Kronschnabl, CEO of Fluffy Logic, talked about her career in the Game industry. We had a brilliant Question & Answer Session at the end of the talk!
Ana Kronschnabl began a career in business management in 1987, when she set up and ran a video production company; clients included Ford UK and the NUS. Since then she has worked at the BBC & Granada as well as in further education. Following work as Research Fellow in Digital Content Creation at UWE, Ana established FluffyLogic in November 2003 and it has grown in size and reputation since then! Ana is currently finishing a PhD in content creation for delivery over new distribution platforms and has a degree in Film and Theatre and an MA in Television Production.
Ana is the co-author of “PlugInTurnOn: A Guide to Filmmaking for the Internet”. Published by Marion Boyars Publishers (May 2004) and set up plugincinema.com, one of the earliest independent sites devoted to the creation and distribution of films for the Internet. Ana enjoys VJing, singing, Runequest, House of the Dead, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and making stained glass art.
Bristol GGD #1
The Department of Computer Science sponsored our launch event! We had 70 people coming to the wine reception.
Date: 15th February 2010 Time: 6pm onwards
Location: University of Bristol, Department of Computer Science, Merchant Venturers Building, Woodland Rd, Bristol BS8 1UB
We had an inspiring talk from Jo Reid from Calvium, our first keynote speaker.
Josephine Reid is currently the Creative Director of Calvium, a company that enables people to build exciting mobile applications based on sensors and context. Jo was formerly a senior researcher at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories working in the Pervasive Computing Laboratory. Whilst at HP she helped to design, lead and analyse a number of field trials to test the value of situated mediascapes and mobile and pervasive technologies. Her research has involved several experiments, observational studies, knowledge elicitation interviews, field trials and concept prototyping giving Jo expertise in experience design and user centred research, specialising in mobile location aware experiences or mediascapes. Jo has also worked for Texas Instruments on information engineering expert systems and prior to that Jo worked for Xerox on HCI prototyping systems. She holds an MBA, a BSc in Computer Science and is currently working on a PhD researching how people make sense of pervasive technologies and environments.
