The first ever Singapore Geek Girls event — girls, guys, and geeks galore

More than 30 participants joined in for the Singapore Geek Girls' first meet-up

On 7th January, I had a wonderful opportunity to take part in the first Singapore Geek Girls meetup organized by Joyce Huang and Mingfei Yan. Being a girl myself I am very interested in what it means to be a geek girl in Singapore and I was extremely lucky to arrive in Singapore right on time for it.

I believe it was two months ago that the idea of the group was born and it apparently addresses a hot spot here in Singapore, as more than 30 people gathered in the cozy Group Therapy Coffee on a Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t a girls-only event and we had six guys who seemed to feel rather comfortable amongst dozens of cheerful and excited girls.

As Joyce in her opening speech explained – the main reason to initiate this coming together was from her personal experience of being one of the 5 girls versus 30 guys at her workplace. “Enough with the dirty jokes!”, she said, and a slew of ‘we-know-what-you-mean’ laughter came from the rest of the ladies.

With some support from guys in the community, girls can also change the world via technology and design. Joyce drafted a proposal where SG Geek Girls will organize meet-ups (once every two months), talks, workshops, bootcamps and other events. She also stressed that what SG Geek Girls becomes would depend on the interests and input from the community.

The girls took turns to listen and share about their interests and motivations

We did a wonderful introduction round where each person explained their interests and motivations for attending and was supported by applause and very often also cheers. Although the event brought together diverse groups of people, I would say that majority of the girls were recent or soon-to-be graduates of the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University and were mainly interested in meeting like-minded girls who have an interest in technology.

Many expressed their desire to learn more about programming and entrepreneurship

While some girls had a technical background, many girls expressed their interest in learning programming. Working in close contact with geeky guys and not understanding the language they speak in (programming languages after all are languages, right?) seems to be an issue of control {when he says this can not be done, is it true?} and also empowerment {to make the website the way I feel it should be, I need to know how to make it}. A few of the girls wanted to start or has already started their own companies.

With just the ladies

I had multiple lovely conversations with girls that afternoon and a point that I kept thinking long after the meeting was regarding the acquisition of knowledge. Very often we feel like other people ‘just somehow know it all’– as if guys magically internalized up-to date knowledge about gadgets and sports tournaments.