GeekFest - The Lineup

Image by KayVee.INC via FlickrHere’s the final GeekFest Dubai 2011 lineup for this Thursday. It’s looking like a whole heap of fun!

Please do note that Dubai Television wants to come along and film this GeekFest for their Out and About programme, so don't be surprised at strange people poking big cameras in your direction! The fashion bloggers will be the ones dancing around in front of the TV cameras shouting 'Me! Me! Me!', by the way...

GEEKTALKS

Held in The Shelter’s ‘cosy’ private screening room, GeekTalks are perennially popular and this time around there are three really cool talks to look forward to – and one guaranteed duffer. Starting at 8.00pm sharp, we’re covering charity, animation, blogging and the future – you could hardly want for more than that!

Steve Sosebee
Palestine and Social Activism
Steve Sosebee is the founder and CEO of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Steve is a highly respected man doing important work to alleviate suffering among the innocents sidelined by a conflict we all know too well. This is going to be about how social media can help work such as Steve’s, about social activism online and perhaps even a little bit about what we can all do to help. Many will recall how we cleared the GeekFest coffers last time around to help little Ola Abu Jarmous, as well as the amazing generosity of those who bid for Gerald Donovan’s stunning GigaPan poster of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi and the many others who gave online. Her appeal closed in record time and she was treated successfully by surgeons in Florence.

Mohammad Fikree 
Animation - The Girl & It
Steve will be followed by Emirati animator and composer Mohammad Fikree, who’s going to be giving an exclusive preview of his new (and literally, just finished) animated short ‘The Girl & It’. Mohammad’s animation work is as delightful as the soundtracks he creates are innovative – what’s more, the tunes are catchy as hell! The Girl & It is a painstakingly created work, a demonstration of the love of imagery and sound combined to create emotional reactions.

Maha Mahdy
The Rise and Rise of the Fashion Blogger
Prominent UAE-based fashion blogger Maha Mahdy will be taking a hard look at the incredible rise of fashion blogging, possibly the bleeding edge of vertically based, professional blogging – where a multi-billion dollar global industry has reacted to blogs by embracing them and literally treating them like royalty. That trend is being mirrored in the Middle East as major brands scramble to cuddle up to bloggers who make the cut – but what does it take to make the grade and get taken seriously? Geeks note, this is the time to shuffle out of the cinema and make way for the well-dressed babes in heels who’ve turned up to this GeekFest!

Me
The Future of GeekFest
I seem to spend my life talking at things, but I've managed to stay silent at GeekFest Dubai until now. To tell you the truth, I’ll have little enough to say for myself, except to ask the audience this one question: what is the future of GeekFest? It’s been a mad little journey given that we started out to walk around the block for tea – there have been GeekFest events around the Middle East, though few have been as regular as Dubai. We look like we're going to welcome GeekFest Ramallah, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Khartoum to the fold soon – and yet what IS GeekFest? Does it deserve to be formalized and how? What do we want to make of this event that seems to have happened around the pure desire for innovators, commentators and social talkers to meet? I really don’t know, so I thought this would be a good chance to ask you!

FLEA MARKETS
GeekFest regulars will remember the GeekTalk from Mita Ray and her co-conspirator aiming to trek across Nepal for charity. They’re holding a flea market in Fujeirah to raise funds and there’ll be a collection box at GeekFest Dubai for anyone who wants to bring in any unwanted clothes, books, gadgets, toys or other stuff for the guys to sell at their fundraiser. More details here.

GAMEFEST
MEGamers.com is the fell force behind GameFest this time around and they’re going to be gathering the usual group of murderous, twisted lunatics in the specially constructed and highly secure caged-off gamers’ area at GeekFest…

VIDEO
We're going to be wandering around videoing people's messages to take to GeekFest Ramallah.

TECHNOCASES
We’re going to be welcoming Eros Group, the uber-retailers of electrical trickery and gadgetry, who will be holding a TechnoCase of superlative things that go tinkle, blip and boink. You can follow them on Twitter at @erosgroup or find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/erosgroup. They’re going to be going big on funky Flip cameras as well as other things with LED lights on them…

And in a rush of last minute dramatic news-type stuff, Lenovo has decided to launch its U260 ultra-light notebook at GeekFest Dubai. The little 12.5" screen minx will be on show in a sneaky previewy kind of way. You can follow Lenovo on @lenovomeep for updates.


EATS
As before, back by popular demand in fact, posh nosh will be provided by The Lime Tree Café.

DEETS
GeekFest2011 takes place at The Shelter in Al Quoz from 7.30pm on Thursday the 20th January 2011. There is no registration, no formality, no requirement of you other than to turn up and even that's optional.You can follow @GeekFestDubai on Twitter or find us on Facebook. If you've never been to The Shelter before, there's a map (as well as a funky GeekFest video) on The Shelter website here.