Girl Geek Scotland are hosting a series of workshops to complement their Speaker Series 2010 on ‘Creativity, Computing and Entrepreneurialism’.
The workshops, aimed at women who are thinking about starting (or have recently started) a Scottish business, will work around the themes of negotiation, funding strategies and creativity in business.
Participants are asked to bring a live project to each event. Workshops will encourage active engagement towards the production of practical solutions to bring this project to life. The workshops will be strongly practice-based and very intense, and will provide an opportunity to learn skills that may not otherwise be accessible. The result will be tangible, usable results that can be taken away and set into immediate practice.
The workshops, each of which will concentrate on one specific skill, will target women who have a particular challenge which they will need to address in order for their project to succeed. During the workshops they will develop a strategy, gather resources and build new skills to deal with real issues facing them in specific projects. Group work will be strongly encouraged in order to practice skills and subsequently apply these skills to their particular situation. This in turn will help develop realistic strategies and forge successful, long-term networks.
The workshops are aimed at women with an interest in technology. Your background is less important than your enthusiasm and desire to follow a tech/creative project through. A diverse range of people are expected to attend with backgrounds in design, art, computer science, engineering, nursing, photography – the list is endless. Girl Geek Scotland hope to attract a good interdisciplinary mix.
There will be three intensive residential workshops held over three different weekends; these will be linked in such a way that participants will be able to attend all three events if they so wish.
All workshops will take place in Stirling at the:
Barceló Stirling Highland Hotel Spittal Street Stirling FK8 1DU
Dates: Creativity in Business: 17–19 September 2010 Funding Strategies: 15–17 October 2010 Negotiation: 19–21 November 2010
Eligibility and Application Process
Workshops are free to attend for all those who fulfill the eligibility criteria as detailed below:
Applicants must be:
Women only
Please note that applications from a team of two (e.g. a main applicant and one business partner) are encouraged and welcomed. While the main applicant MUST be female, the business partner may be male. Having a male partner will not adversely affect your application, but please be aware that any male attendee will have to pay his own costs, as detailed in the section below. Girl Geek Scotland are not in a position to find alternative funding for men.
Must be based in the Lowlands and Uplands of Scotland
Girl Geek Scotland are trying to negotiate funding from other sources to allow participants from the Highlands and Islands to benefit from the workshops. If this doesn’t work out, applications from the Highlands and Islands are still very welcome, but you’ll have to pay your own way. Costs currently are: for Sept and Nov workshops, £295 per weekend, for Oct workshop £325 for the weekend. This includes room, all meals, materials, wireless, but NOT wine and other yet to be incurred costs. Expect another £30 to £50 to be added to this amount per weekend to cover all contingencies. Please note Girl Geek Scotland are not seeking to make a profit from these fees – the higher cost for the October workshop is down to the higher venue cost on that weekend. If you can’t afford to pay for the costs, but would like to attend, please apply anyway, and Girl Geek Scotland will let you know of their progress with respect to other funding sources as soon as possible.
If the applicant already runs a company, the company must not exceed 250 employees or €50M per annum
Applications from academics, students, self-employed and other pre-incorporated individuals are welcome
If you DON’T fall into these categories, please get in touch with Geek Girl Scotland as they may be able to be flexible, depending on circumstances.
The call for participation may be downloaded here
The application form as a word document may be downloaded here
If you have any questions, please contact the Events Co-ordinator, // catherine@girlgeekscotland.co.uk // or telephone 07999 933 5573.
