GeekFest Workshops - GeekShops!

So you want to start your own business?

New to GeekFest and made possible by Shelter's funky new layout, which includes a closed off meeting room upstairs, we're hosting a series of three workshops for the more serious minded geek - this time around, they're focused around starting up your own business - you can get inspiration from the women who make up the Geeka Showcase (see yesteday's post) and then join in one of the three workshop events taking place upstairs from 8pm onwards. If you want to guarantee a seat at these (space is limited to an estimated 10-12 people), you should probably get in touch with one of the workshop leaders fast - their contacts are below!


8-8.30PM 
Public Relations for startups 
Mita Ray (Market Buzz Public Relations - @mita56)
Building public relations and communications into your startup plan is essential, but few startups feel they can afford professional communications. Mita has some solutions...


8.30-9PM
Human Resources - making those first hires

Ash Athawale (Senior Executive Consultant for IT, Reed Global)
From your first hire to world domination seems a long way, but how do you manage those first appointments and grow your team? Our team of HR specialists have some crucial answers to help you make probably some of the most crucial hiring decisions you'll ever face...
(Ash will be joined by Carolyn Bartz, Executive Consultant for HR at Reed Global. You can email Victoria.Wilcox(at)reedglobal (dot)com to ensure your name's on the door!)

9-9.30PM

So you think you want to start a company?

PK Gulati (Angel investor - @pkgulati)

Among other things the man behind The Indus Entrepeneurs in the UAE, angel investor and serial start-up fosterer PK Gulati looks at what you really, really need to know to make the decision to create a startup and then how to make it work. If think you've got an entrepeneurial bone in your body and want to do something about it, you'll need to be at this workshop.

Volunteers to run future GeekShops on topics close to your hearts are more than welcome to get in touch! Hit me up at @alexandermcnabb.

GeekaFest – The Skinny

Wow. There’s going to be a lot going on over at the New Improved Formula Shelter this Thursday as GeekaFest powers into girl-talking action! Please note the theme doesn't mean a women only event - those of the male persuasion are most welcome as, indeed, are those who remain uncertain...

In no particular order then:

BOOKS

Please do bring any unwanted old books with you as @devinadivecha and @tdallonsy are collecting books for their fund raising drive for the Manzil special needs school in Sharjah. They’re targeting 10,000 books collected and they’re currently at 7,000 so you could really help with a box of those unwanted pot boilers!!!

STUFF

The nice chaps at Stuff Magazine have arranged to have free copies for everyone at GeekaFest! Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy peach? Altogether now ahhhhh!

GAMEFEST

Once again powered by Bonkers Gamer Website Lochal Archade, GameFest will feature Team Fortress 2 and, for the gentler-spirited Geeka, Child of Eden. There's a really cool area upstairs at Shelter that's just perfect for the Gamers to do their thing, too!

GEEKSHOPS

New to GeekFest and made possible by the funky new layout, which includes a closed off meeting room upstairs, we're hosting a series of three workshops for the more serious minded geek - this time focused around starting up your own business - you can get inspiration from the women who make up the Geeka Showcase (see below) and then join in one of the three workshop events taking place. If you want to guarantee a seat at these (space is limited to an estimated 10-12 people), you should probably get in touch with one of the workshop leaders fast!


8-8.30PM 
Public Relations for startups 
Mita Ray (Market Buzz Public Relations - @mita56)
Building public relations and communications into your startup plan is essential, but few startups feel they can afford professional communications. Mita has some solutions...


8.30-9PM
Human Resources - making those first hires
Ash Athawale (Senior Executive Consultant for IT, Reed Global)
From your first hire to world domination seems a long way, but how do you manage those first appointments and grow your team? Our team of HR specialists have some crucial answers to help you make probably some of the most crucial hiring decisions you'll ever face...
(Ash will be joined by Carolyn Bartz, Executive Consultant for HR at Reed Global. You can email Victoria.Wilcox(at)reedglobal (dot)com to ensure you're names on the door!)

9-9.30PM

So you think you want to start a company?

PK Gulati (Angel investor - @pkgulati)

Among other things the man behind The Indus Entrepeneurs in the UAE, angel investor and serial start-up fosterer PK Gulati looks at what you really, really need to know to make the decision to create a startup and then how to make it work. If think you've got an entrepeneurial bone in your body and want to do something about it, you'll need to be at this workshop.

TECHNOCASES

We’re joined at GeekFest this week by two Technology Showcases, Pickapic and Jacky’s Electronics.

Pickapic is a Dubai-based startup with a smart service that lets you download their software and use it to create an album of your photography and then print it as a one-off, printing press quality, hardback book. You can take a look at their website linked here if you can’t wait for Thursday!

Jacky’s is using the opportunity to introduce people to its EcoExchange initiative. EcoExchange is a program that lets you take your old GeekJunk to Jacky’s, where they’ll offer you a price for it (where it’s worth anything!) and then either sell it on or dispose of it to ISO standards. There’s a good post on the program here on the Jacky’s Electronics blog. So you can bring any of your old gadgets (details of what they'll accept below) along to GeekFest at the New Shelter this Thursday and trade it in for Jacky's vouchers!
 

GEEKATALKS

In possible order of appearance, starting at 8pm and kept to their 15 minute timeslots by the gentle ministrations of Monsignor Rupert Bumfrey, we have:

Amazing Women

Known to many as @amazingsusan, Susan Macaulay is a feminist, writer, speaker, coach, blogger, expatriate Canadian, citizen of the world, wannabe geek, humble traveler, sometimes rabble rouser, self-proclaimed amazing woman AND social mediapreneur.

From being a self-proclaimed ‘blog virgin’ in 2008, she now singlehandedly (virtually), runs AmazingWomenRock.com (55,000 unique visits/month), three Facebook pages (combined fanship: 26,000), and three twitter accounts (total following: 30,000). Find out how she did it, take a walk through the new amazingwomenrock.com and find out about @shequotes, her newest venture!

Film, culture and stuff

Nayla Al Khaja (@naylaalkhaja) possibly needs no introduction, but here we go anyway. Nayla Al Khaja is the first woman film producer in the United Arab Emirates. The CEO of D-SEVEN Motion Pictures and D-SEVEN FZ LLC, a marketing and design agency that offers full Media campaign and corporate branding services, Nayla has secured a reputation for creating films that explore topics that skate close to the comfort zones of Emirati culture – her latest award winning film, Malal (bored) looks at an Emirati woman whose honeymoon reveals the pressures of arranged marriages.

The state of autism in the UAE and fighting for change

A reporter working on Commercial Interior Design & Middle East Architect magazines, Devina Divecha (@devinadivecha) is a keen photographer, food blogger and sci-fi fan. She’s involved in driving a series of initiatives to help people with autism in the UAE – a personal project with her autistic brother, fund raising for special needs education and a project to help families with special needs children. And that’s precisely what she’ll be talking about!

Steppin' the Heels of an Emiratiya blogger

A journalism graduate, Aida Al Busaidy’s official career began in 2003. A well known figure, Aida (@AidaAlB) has worked in TV, newspapers and communications and currently is a columnist with The National, as well as blogging at aidaaalb.posterous.com. She’ll be looking at the challenges and successes of communications as an Emirati, as well as quite how your life is changed when you put it all online!

THE GEEKA SHOWCASE

All well known online, these nine small businesses have one thing in common – the entrepreneurs behind them are all female. They’ll be available to talk about what they do, sell you stuff, give tips on starting your own small business and all sorts! More details with links and all that good stuff over at GeordieArmani’s Blog linked here – many thanks to her for co-ordinating this smashing collection of talented and interesting entrepreneurial types!

 

House of Colour Dubai 

Debbie and partner in colourful crime Janet Small will be available to answer all your questions related to colour and personal image.  We offer services for both the male and the females of the species so don't be shy, come along and have a chat.  We will also be showcasing our hand-made jewellery and a selection of fab hairslides and other bits and pieces.

Financial Planning in the UAE

Keren Bobker, the best Female Financial Advisor in the UAE, passionate about women's rights, writer of On Your Side Column in the National, regular contributor on the air with Dubai Today, Night Line, and various other written publications in the UAE.

Simply Irresistible

Mehnaz Anshah and her wonderful range of home made cakes, were they made with women in mind? Possibly but let's face it the men all love cake though some won't admit it, looking foward to seeing her range of delicious delicacies

Teezers 

Mahjabeen Umar, a Mommy by Day a designer by night, with her fabulous iron on transfers, a great way to transform a plain item of clothing.

Spagenie

Simply the best Spa deals in town!

Mamavents 

Public events news views and competitions for women and families

Elan Interiors LLC 

Ratna Dutta will be showcasing her design studio and fit out business with the ability to create and implement entire concepts for Interiors. 

My Exwardrobe 

A fabulous new initiative for selling on your good quality 'pre loved' clothes

The English Tea Party 

Original vintage crockery available for hire for tea parties, established in the UK in 2006 and now available in the UAE.

NEWS

We’ll also have a surprise announcement or two to make on the day!!!

EATS

As usual, The Limetree will be doing 'the business'!

MORES

GeekaFest takes place Thursday, the 22nd September, from around 7.30pm onwards. You can get more information on Facebook (linked here) or Twitter (@GeekFestDubai). There's a Facebook event page, too, linked here.

Election Fever

Image via WikipediaIt's been an interesting couple of weeks following the outdoor circuits of the UAE, as candidates for the twenty publicly elected seats of the 40-seat Federal National Council have been trying to get word out that they deserve to represent the people in the national advisory assembly.

This is the first time we've ever seen quite so much public brouhaha - there are some 468 candidates and, although they have a mandatory Dhs2 million ($550,000) campaign budget cap, it is hard to see how some haven't been overspending. It's certainly been the salvation of the outdoor advertising industry, which has been reeling ever since the real estate collapse tore the guts out of the overheated medium. The Arabic papers are filled to the brim with ads from candidates, many are expensive half page colour spots, others have been putting up election tents. Some have Facebook pages, others are advertising their BB Pins. Suppose at least it's better than scrawling them on cassette boxes and hurling them at women.

We're not exactly talking universal suffrage here: the UAE's electorate will consist of 129,274 people (59,991 are women), picked by the rulers' courts of the seven emirates. That's up from 6,600 people who participated in the last FNC election, held in 2006. While they will select 20 candidates for the advisory FNC, the other 20 will be directly selected by the rulers' courts.

And yet while the winds of change have been busily gusting around the region following the events of the 'Arab Spring' (a phrase, incidentally, I am coming to mildly dislike), there appears to be little appetite for that sort of thing around these parts. Speaking of his experience with voters (the 'electoral college') with Gulf News, Dubai candidate Abdullah Abdul Majeed Al Hajiri was quoted by the paper as saying: "Most of those I manage to talk to were either unaware of the FNC or have no burning issue for someone to represent them in the decision making process."

Gulf News' editor in chief, Abdul Hamid Ahmad, in an editorial published by the paper today, points out that not all of the Dubai candidates have been active. "They do not have the motivation and the drive to reach out to the people," he thunders.

Perhaps that's because the people are hunky dory and don't actually want their babies kissed or people making them outrageous promises that never materialise?

The voters go to the polls on the 24th September. It'll be fascinating to see what the turnout's like.

GeekFest Dubai and the New Shelter

Here it is! The New Shelter is on 8th Street, behind the Spinneys Warehouses and Al Tayer Motors, in a big compound of grey-walled, blue-roofed warehouses.

The contact details are:


The Shelter
Warehouse 30, Al Serkal, Al Qouz
Phone: 043809040
Fax: 043809041

And GeekFest is taking place next Thursday, the 22nd, from around 7.30pm onwards. You can get more information on Facebook (linked here) or Twitter (@GeekFestDubai).

Security Scare

The story linked here popped up in one of my feeds, not sure which. I read it with growing horror - a half-Arab, half-Jewish woman and two Indian men were reported for 'behaving suspiciously' on a flight that had landed in Detroit from Denver.

Note it had landed, not that it was waiting to take off.

The plane was moved to a secure area and all three were removed from it by armed officers. They were cuffed, searched, held in cells for hours, strip searched and interrogated. I do heartily recommend you follow the link above and read her account - it makes for frightening and depressing reading.

Given my own recent experiences with airport security, it once again made me wonder quite why we are all putting up with this. Totalitarianism and terrorism must not be allowed to dominate our societies, and yet with this type of 'security' that's just what's happening.

GeekaFest Cometh!

GeekaFest 'One for the Girls' is to take place at The New Shelter in Al Quoz on Thursday the 22nd September. I've been there a couple of times now and I have to say I'm excited. The building is quite, quite mad - a wooden barn constructed inside a warehouse!!! It's a fabby space, ideal for GeekFest and a significant upgrade from dear Old Shelter.

The 'One for the Girls' theme is mainly down to the nature of the GeekTalks - all four talks will be by wimmin - more details soon. We're dreaming up some other stuff, so any suggestions, volunteers or brilliant schemes are more than welcome! There's loads of space at the New Shelter, so we can accommodate most madcap schemes!!!


GameFest will once again be powered by LochalArchade and the good news here is that the New Shelter has a much bigger area with lots of power sockets and seats to support an expanded scheme.

We also have rather grandiose cupcake plans, but the LimeTree will once again be providing of its finest!

There's also a dedicated workshop room and we'll be using this to host a series of workshops on small business technology, part of an ongoing scheme of workshops that Shelter has dreamed up, being run by Bon Education. If you'd like to run a workshop, do get in touch (@alexandermcnabb on Twitter is probably best!) - we're looking at three 45 minute sessions aimed at helping people to implement websites, build better SEO, monetise activism and other impossible things to do.

Where IS the New Shelter, you ask? It's behind Al Tayer Motors in Al Quoz - you basically turn right before you get to Al Tayer, left to head towards the Third Line Gallery and The Courtyard and hang a right just after you pass it - take the next right and turn into the warehouses directly on your right. There's a one way system inside the compound, so follow that to the end of the first alley, turn left and then turn left again and the Shelter is on your right. See? Simple!

Don't worry. We'll work on a map.

The Dubai Speeding Festival

Image by Camera Slayer via FlickrDubai Police have finally clarified the traffic fine discount story and confirmed to The National that a 30% discount on all motoring violations will be available for the coming three months to December 11th.

You have to pay all your fines at once and, you'll note from the story 'Police are working with the Ministry of Interior to allow people in other emirates to get their discount when paying Dubai fines' - or, in other words, quite how this will work if you live in Abu Dhabi and want to get your discount.has yet to be quite worked out.

I have to confess to being a tad puzzled by this one. Cars here have to be registered annually, with a road-worthiness test and a registration process that involves you paying all outstanding fines. So if the police are giving a discount to encourage people to pay their outstanding fines, that must surely mean people aren't actually registering their cars (because you can't avoid paying the fines if you do register your car).

But then surely you just look out for people who aren't displaying the up to date registration stickers on their car bumpers and nick 'em if they've got no registration and outstanding fines. Even better, look up people who have registered vehicles and who haven't renewed their registrations and then pay 'em a house visit with a Black Maria in tow.

Anyway, the discount will reduce the 'entry level' traffic fine of Dhs700 to Dhs490, so you might as well make hay while the sun shines and cough up.

If this is successful we could maybe look forward to having an annual event. You could have fireworks and things, even raffle off a Lexus every day. Hell, you could even have a mascot! Speedhesh!

This looks like Beirut!

Image via WikipediaI have long been meaning to post this but for one reason or another the timing has never seemed quite propitious. Today, the omens augur well.

I follow an awful lot of blogs around the region. I don't always comment as often as I'd like to (comments are always nice, they let people know there are eyeballs out there), but I'm usually pretty diligent at dipping into Netvibes and seeing who's been updating.

One of my favourite treats is Jad Aoun's blog, Lebanon: Under Rug Swept. A great highlight for me is Jad's one-man campaign to stop people using the cliché 'Looks like Beirut' to describe any given scene of destruction or degradation. Apart from finding the mildly obsessive spirit of Jad's endeavour attractive (he snail mails a 'looks like Beirut' certificate to offenders, as well as outing them on the blog), I'm amused by how, over twenty years after the end of the civil war, people are still using the phrase.

It's something I have encountered in my writing life, an oddly jaundiced Western view of the Middle East in general and certainly of Beirut in particular. I have had agents rejecting the manuscript of my second serious novel, with the rather over-complicated working title of Beirut, based on the fact that people don't want to hear about war zones. (I am currently represented by Robin Wade of Wade and Doherty, who is shopping Beirut around various London publishers) The book's about an international hunt for two missing nuclear warheads and is set in Hamburg, Spain, London, Brussels, Malta, Albania, the Greek Islands and, last but by no means least, that most sexy of Mediterranean cities, Beirut.

I love Beirut. I always look forward to visits with anticipation and excitement. I don't live there, so I don't have to experience the city's everyday frustrations (and they are legion) - I can just drop in and fill myself up with wandering around the streets, enjoying Ottoman architecture and the vibrant street life. I wander around stealing locations for books or snapping vignettes, exploring the fascinating diversity of the place, from the flashy shopfronts of Hamra and Verdun to the labyrinthine ethnicity of Bourj Hammoud. The city sparkles and jostles, stretched out from the long corniche along the splendid Mediterranean up into the mountains, all presided over by the great white-capped bulk of Mount Sassine. At night it lights up, bars and restaurants serving a constant tide of laughing, happy people - Gemayzeh no longer quite the place to be it once was (and Munot before it), while Hamra is becoming busier. It feels good to be there.

So I am always pained to get reactions to Beirut like 'This gritty and realistic novel is set in a war torn city' or 'We don't think the British public would be interested in a conflicted city like Beirut'. The first comment made my blood boil even more because the book is most certainly not based in a war torn city. It's based in a sexy, modern city that fizzles with life. (The fact that much of its infrastructure teeters just to the right side of disaster just adds frisson...) The comment just showed the reader had, at best, skimmed a few bits before spurning me like one would spurn a rabid dog. What made it worse was the reference, twenty years after the fact, to the place being war torn.

In fact, thinking about it, I may well just refer any future perpetrators directly to Jad!

Trapped

Image via Wikipedia
We are blessed in Northern Sharjah in that we are surrounded by ADNOC and Emarat petrol stations - the closure of every EPPCO and ENOC station in the Northern Emirates has hitherto had no practical affect on our lives.

Until I left Dubai yesterday with no petrol. I didn't realise until we'd hit 'murder mile', the road that links Dubai to Sharjah. We had travelled 30km with the petrol light on (I always zero the trip when it comes on so I know I've got 30km to get petrol in), which was not good news. I have once travelled 32km without petrol but I'm far too scared of running out to ever push it further than that.

There are two reasons why running out of petrol is a major fear factor. My first, and principle, reason is that I could never live with myself for running out of petrol whilst driving in one of the world's major oil producing countries. The second is that running out of petrol means getting a taxi and then finding an open petrol station. Now, in the UK I know they all sell nice red fuel cans. I have never seen one on sale here and don't know where I'd get a suitable container from. I've seen petrol sloshed into all manner of odd containers at petrol stations, but I've never seen an actual petrol container used. The prospect of having to dance around trying to find a spare container at least marginally fit for purpose doesn't fill my heart with stuff.

I have only run out petrol once before in my life, and that was on purpose. The publishing company I worked for in the mid-eighties had gone bust following an acrimonious boardroom putsch and The Evil Receivers had demanded the prompt return of my company car. They got it too - empty from driving around the building and coasted nicely to its parking spot after the engine had died. (I still have the cheque for 67p from them in settlement of hundreds of pounds of outstanding expenses).

Of course, southern Sharjah is the land of EPPCO and ENOC. Driving around, pricked by increasing desperation I started to realise just how this whole closure thing must be hacking a load of people off - the odometer kept ticking as we tried to head towards where we knew there was an Emarat station (but which I had no hope of reaching before the inevitable cough of a dying Pajero was heard). 34km, 40km and by now my hands were sweating. I have never seen so many EPPCO and ENOC stations in my life. They seemed to be around every street corner. And then, at last, at 43km, an Emarat station hoved into view, with cars cascading down onto the street as they queued and jostled for fuel.

It did rather leave me wishing fervently that ADNOC would hurry up and take 'em all over...

We are not the problem

Image via WikipediaMy heart sank as we walked into security at Belfast's 'George Best' City Airport and I saw the Group Four logos on the staff's shirts. Outsourcing airport security, for some reason, just struck me as wrong.

My word, but they were professional. Scrupulous, painstaking and unfailingly polite. Sarah's bag was re-scanned and finally hand-searched by a staffer who explained what was going on, why and what he was doing - who was pleasant and yet businesslike, his movements careful, considered and in no way threatening. He even offered to help repack the bag.

The whole experience merely highlighted for me how utterly dehumanising and demeaning the awful security at Heathrow is - and how it really doesn't have to be like that. I have had run-ins with the staff at Heathrow before, aggressive and pumped up with their own importance, they seem to jump on any chance to crack the whip and let you know that 'sir' is a word used to call dogs. Their attitude is bullying, aggressive and at times sneering - they use aggressive hand gestures, are above any explanation and seem to thrive on working in one of the filthiest security areas I have ever encountered.

I have been increasingly puzzled at why we all put up with it - cowed and compliant, we let the staff running this demeaning regiman treat us like criminals rather than the people they are charged to protect. We shuffle through the barriers, herded with curt grunts of 'this way', 'down here' or 'this side'; we stop obediently when hands are shoved in our faces, wait for trays to be brought before we take our laptops out of our bags (not Kindles, for some reason) and take off our belts and shoes to shuffle through the metal detector - all the while being barked at by the camp guards.

On one flight, Sarah was selected for random body scanning. Not unnaturally, she asked about the scanner - what technology was it, were there any risks associated with it? She was told to 'read the sign', which helpfully said you have been selected for scanning and if you don't comply you won't be allowed to fly. It was the final straw. We complained to the Important Looking Man With The Radio and pointed out that he might like consider a trip to Belfast to look at best practice because Heathrow's security area was a deeply - and wholly unnecessarily - unpleasant place to be (in fact, friends refuse to fly through Heathrow for this very reason).

He agreed with us. Apparently BAA recognises the fact they have poor people skills and that their management of passengers has become secondary to their management of the task. Which is all very well, but the people in this case ARE the task. We have security, surely, so we can travel without fear and the shadow of extremism over our heads. The people providing the security are public servants, accountable, open to question and responsible for managing the task, in this case protecting people, appropriately.

Or have I gone mad? Should we really be grateful, in the name of protecting us against extremism, to be treated like dumb beasts every time we travel?