Forum’s high-speed links for girl geeks (From Durham Times)

Forum’s high-speed links for girl geeks

1:23pm Friday 19th June 2009

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THE region’s first forum for women working in niche technology and science sectors to meet and share experiences is being launched tonight.

Durham Girl Geek Dinners is targeting females across the North-East who work in male-dominated sectors and feel isolated in their work.

The network, the first of its kind in this region, launches tonight and is set to be attended by up to 150 women, and will be inspired by an array of high-profile female speakers including Clare Hart, executive vicepresident of Dow Jones, who will be a “virtual speaker”

from the US.

Durham Girl Geek Dinners was launched by Mia Chapman, managing director of Biotecnix, based in Consett, which deals with innovations from security systems to vein recognition.

Ms Chapman said she founded the group in the region as she is fully aware how isolating it can feel professionally to work in such a niche sector.

“Working in the science and technology industries, it is often very hard for women to get on. But despite the many challenges we face, there are so many women out there in this region doing really well, all the time I’m getting to hear about female- led high-technology companies, and it’s really encouraging,” she said.

“Working in biometrics, which is very male-dominated, it will be nice for me personally to meet fellow women working in similar environments. Even in this day and age, it’s very common to feel under-represented and isolated in these sectors.

“The idea of Durham Girl Geek Dinners is to share knowledge, share experiences and share information, which will hopefully help us all in our own careers.

Hopefully, we will also be able to inspire women to follow a career path in the science, technology or IT sectors, and show them they have got a big network of support to help them.”

The event tonight is the first of a series of regular meetings, and will be held at the Beamish Park Hotel from 7pm. The other keynote speaker will be Fiona Cruickshank, founder of Northumberland companies SCA Pharma and The Specials Laboratory, the only North- East company to break into The Times Fast Track 100.

For more information about Durham Girl Geek Dinners, or to attend tonight’s event, visit durhamgirlgeekdinners.com

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