Girl Geeks Scotland (GGS) [1] was established in 2008 and is part of the Girl Geek Dinners network. GGS held its first Girl Geek Dinner in Dundee in February 2009. A group in Edinburgh was established shortly after [2] and GGS has now grown to include groups in Glasgow and Aberdeen.
In September 2009 GGS won funding from the UKRC[3] in a collaborative bid with Leeds Girl Geek Dinners to support a speaker series for 2010 on the theme of "Creativity, Computing and Entrepreneurialism". Through this speaker series GGS intends to support knowledge transfer into business and entrepreneurial activities, which has been identified as key to Britain's economic recovery and future in the Digital Britain Report. The School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh are acting as the parent organisation for this project. Other key funders which provided match funding are SICSA[4] and WYLLN.[5] There is a growing list of sponsors and partners for this project which now includes NCR Corporation, Blonde Digital, brightsolid, Harvey Nash, British Computer Society, nti Leeds, Carbon Imagineering, Kilo 75, Codeworks, Digital 20/20 and the WEA (Workers' Educational Association) Scotland.
This series tackles the issue of Leadership by bringing international high-profile female speakers from Europe and Silicon Valley to the UK. The programme is designed to inspire the younger generation, foster international business links and present the ‘next steps’ for women in early and mid-career stages. Talks in the series are on the theme of Creativity, Computing and Entrepreneurialism and The speakers are videoed for the development of a copyright free digital and web archive of high-profile female speakers in the UK.
The Speaker Series was launched[6] in Dundee Contemporary Arts by Silicon Valley Enterpreneur Shanna Telllerman CEO of Wildpockets[7] a spin out company from Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center. This event was covered by National Press, most notably BBC Radio Scotland[8] and GMTV, as well as featured articles in SquareGo Magazine.[9][10]
In late 2009, Girl Geek Scotland won funding from Informatic Ventures[11] in Edinburgh, to develop three intensive residential workshops for 2010 on the subjects of 'Creativity into business', 'Developing a Funding Strategy' and 'Negotiation Strategies and Techniques'.The Workshops are for women in pre-start-up business; start-up businesses and existing businesses in the technology sector in Scotland.