Curious about our first girl geek dinner we arrived at the KPMG building. It was immediately clear that this place was no university building. No place to put our bikes, security personnel at the entrance and an astonishing interior. If the sponsor wanted to impress us, it worked. Meeting our fellow girl geeks over coffee/thee and cookies set us at ease, and it was fun to meet with such a diverse group of people. Some were interested in the event itself without having any knowledge on hacking or computers, like ourselves, while others were working in computer science or remotely related areas like digital art.

After dinner, it was time for the talk. The first impression of Melanie Rieback was that of a very pleasant and energetic person. She started her talk with the account of how she had been involved in the organization of the Girl Geek Dinners in Amsterdam several years before, and immediately transmitted to the audience her emotions about those years, and it was clear that she had very fond memories of the beginnings of the Amsterdam GGD. She then described how she had developed her passion for computers since her childhood. Her style was informal and colloquial, and we could feel together with her the excitements and the difficulties of her career path. It did not seem that being a female had bothered Melanie or hindered her work in such a male-dominated field as IT.

After her talk, the question whether being a girl influenced her career made her realise how lucky she was coming from a family that encouraged and supported her from a young age. She didn’t have to struggle to change family expectations toward career and hobbies fit for girls. Being a girl in IT definitely made her stand out, causing more pressure to perform but also making it easier for people to remember her. All in all, the girl geek dinner was an interesting experience, and even though it was difficult for us to follow all the concepts and terms Melanie used in her talk, we definitely learned a lot, spoke to a lot of interesting people and simply had a fun evening.

Photos were taken by Tom Verstraat and Rhiannon Meredith.

Post written by Asiya Giniatullina and Marieke Meijer.