jupit er-labs.co m http://jupiter- labs.com/jupiter- labs-sponsors-san-antonio-girl-geek-dinners/

Maria Haase

Exciting News: Jupiter Labs is the new Sponsor for the SanAntonio Girl Geek Dinner Meetup

I actually have two announcements that are pretty awesome! First, I am excitedto announce our partnership with the San Antonio chapter of Girl Geek Dinnersand I am happy to support such a great organization. And second, I waschosen to take over the organization of this group as well, which means I willbe able to support this amazing group in multiple ways. But let me tell you a bitmore about Girl Geek Dinners and why it is so excit ing f or me and my companyto get involved with this group:

What is Girl Geek Dinners?

Girl Geek Dinners was started back in 2005 by Sarah Lamb, a sof twareengineer f rom the UK. In most of her teams that she worked on, she was theonly woman. Being a hands-on woman, she f igured that there must be other women out there dealing with thesame hurdles than herself . She decided to set up a Meetup, so these women could connect, build f riendshipsand help each other to establish themselves in prof essions where women were and still are a minority. Whilemen are not excluded f rom Girl Geek Dinner events, every woman can only bring one man to the events, toensure women represent at least 50% (usually more though) of the group. Girl Geek Dinners became asuccess right away and spread to cit ies world wide to connect women working in technology, science,engineering and other predominantly male prof essions. The main mission of the Girl Geek Dinners is toconnect amazing women who share an interest in technology and science, so they can build a network of like-minded f riends, supporters and mentors. And in April of 2013 it f inally happened…

San Antonio Girl Geek Dinners

On April 4, 2013 the San Antonio Girl Geek Dinners had their f irst event. Veronica Morales, who has been aGadget and Technology lover all her lif e, took on the role as organizer and together with Laura Mesia, theystarted to develop a great community of amazing women f rom San Antonio. Af ter just 10 meetups and withinless than a year, they have grown to a group with over 80 new members and San Antonio Girl Geek DinnerMeetups has become a thriving Meetup community with regular events every f irst Thursday of each month.Veronica and Laura organized visits at Geekdom and the Microsof t store, dinners and craf t parties f or the SanAntonio Girl Geek Dinner women to connect and get to know each other. Thank you Veronica and Laura f or allyour hard work and bringing Girl Geek Dinners to San Antonio.

The Next Chapter

Last Saturday, I was approached by Veronica and Laura andasked if I wanted to take over as organizer of the SanAntonio Girl Geek Dinner meetup and whether my companyJupiter Labs would be willing to sponsor the Meetup Groupto of f set the Meetup.com f ees. I f eel very honored to havebeen chosen by these two great ladies. I know I have somebig shoes to f ill, but I am very excited to take on this role andI hope to continue to grow this community and enable theseamazing and inspiring women to connect, share their storiesand help each other grow. I am very passionate about womenmaking their dreams come true and not limiting themselves orlett ing others limit them to predef ined gender roles. Science,Technology, Engineering, Math and all these other topics aref ascinating and are changing the world we live in. We need to expose, encourage and mentor girls and womento join these f ields and f ollow their passion. In the coming months, I hope to strengthen and grow this greatcommunity f urther and set up f un events that let us enjoy ourselves and encourage each other in our passionabout all the things that make us true Girl Geeks.

To join San Antonio Girl Geek Dinners, please sign up at Meetup.com to join the San Antonio Girl Geek DinnersMeetup Group! We’d love to meet you!

Why I feel so passionate about the idea of Girl Geek Dinners?

I grew up on a construction site in Germany. Well, not really, but since my Dad was head of a decent sized roadconstruction company, I spent my youth surrounded by excavators, cranes and engineers. All of them weremen. In High School, I’d spent my summers working f or this company, even doing some technical things likearea measurements and calculations. I was f ascinated by the idea to actually build something that people useon a daily basis. I still f elt kind of proud when I drove through Germany last summer and pointed out to myhusband: “See that bridge over there? Yeah, I helped build that!” Growing up in that industry, I also saw howdif f icult it was f or women to establish themselves in this industry, especially in Germany, where gender rolesare still much more f ollowed than in the US. Many of the women that did make it in that world had becomemanlier than some of the men. Instead of using the unique advantages of being a woman to do thingsdif f erently (but maybe better), they switched of f their f emale side and pretended to be “one of the guys”. I triedthat f or a while, but it just wasn’t working f or me. I wanted a career, where I could be me and so I chose to buildcommunication strategies, not streets to bring people closer together. The smell of asphalt still makes me f eelat home though…

Girl Geek Dinners helps women to f ollow their passion and build a network of women that of f er support,mentorship and camaraderie. I am very excited to be part of this group and can’t wait to see where this will takeus!