After August's event at the Living Room, the second Leeds Girl Geek dinner was held at The Loft Leeds Creative Event Space on Wednesday 3rd December on Cross York Street in Leeds City Centre. Opening during the early hours of the evening and continuing till late, speakers included Monica Tailor of Kilo75 and Katie Lips of Kisky Netmedia, an award winning Social Media and Social Mobile consultancy.

Girl Geeks from far and wide gathered to meet and share their knowledge on both creative and technical topics. The room filled up with people and food as the event unfolded into an interesting, thought provoking evening. Women represented a range of companies including Chapter Eight, Simple Usability, Communication Design Solutions Studios, Brahm, Swamp, Numiko, fuse8 and Reach Further. Monica Tailor's gave an inspiring talk which covered the ten points she wished she had known before going into business. For more information on the presentation, you can watch a slideshow by clicking here.

After a refreshment break, Katie Lips followed on to persuade people about new emerging areas in the digital sector. Cofounder of Treasure My Text, Katie is no stranger to innovative ideas. Specialising in social projects, the changing nature of geeks has become apparent as a lot of the ideas that were once fresh and new to pioneers become mainstream. As Monica ended her talk with us sparing a thought for the geeks", a question and answer time began. "What do people think about Social Networking? Is it just a fad?" provoked a mixed reaction from the audience but highlighted some foundational understanding that had gone array in the excitement of 'everyone's using it'.

Leia from nti attended for the first time and has written her own story of the event for readers:

"What do we mean by a Girl Geek?

Just one of the questions posed (and hopefully answered) at last nights Girl Geek Dinner at The Loft, Creative Event Space, in Leeds.

As a newcomer to the Girl Geek Dinner, I wasn™t sure what to expect, but was relieved to find out from Katie Lips from Treasure My Text about the ˜changing face of geekdom™. No longer is the word ˜geek™ confined to programmers and techies, although these women still clearly have a place at this event. Now we enter a brave new world where new media, social networking, text messaging and even viral marketing are the activities of Girl Geeks everywhere.

Together with the top ten tips for businesses from Monica Tailor of Kilo 75, the event proved both informative and fun. But I have to confess that announcing Alex Lips, one of the few men who attended the event, and the father of one of the speakers, as the raffle winner of some hairdressing vouchers, had to be the best laugh of the night!

Altogether it was a great event from nti Leeds, with some really interesting discussion, good food and fantastic company.

I™m proud to wake up this morning as a fully initiated Girl Geek!"

Time was given for notices outside of Geek events including the British Computer Society Pub Quiz and the next GeekUp gathering to be held on Friday 19th December 2008, venue yet to be confirmed.

Another successful Girl Geek Dinner had attendees looking forward to the next one, so watch this space!

Thank you to our sponsors Digital 2020 for the welcome drinks.