Girl's Guide to Liverpool: Liverpool Girl Geeks

Girl's Guide to Liverpool: Liverpool Girl Geeks

The ‘Girl’s Guide to Liverpool’ by Billie Walker aims to provide you with information on the people and events created around the city to support and celebrate women.

Ada Lovelace and Hedy Lamarr have been widely acknowledged as playing pivotal roles in the progression of technology. However these women’s achievements are rarely taught in schools and the Technology sector is still to a large extent seen as a man’s game. Liverpool Girl Geeks aim to change this.

When I met with Chelsea Slater, co-founder of Liverpool Girl Geeks, she explained to me how discouraged young girls are to follow their passions in the world of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). As only 17% of the UK tech sector is made up of women, it is no wonder these girls do not see a place for them in this department. Not only does the makeup of the tech world deter these girls from their passions, often parents and teachers do too. Chelsea informed me that teachers have put off some girls from choosing courses because the teacher has told them they will be mostly male dominated. With girls being discouraged from their passions as early as when choosing their GCSEs, it is no wonder that this year 100,000 tech jobs went unfilled when those inspired to enter these career paths are being prevented at such a young age. 

Liverpool Girl Geeks is an organization geared towards fixing this gender imbalance by inspiring and supporting women in the tech industry. One of their main projects is the Girl Geek Academy at FACT: which is an eight week course for 11-16 year old girls. This course teaches girls important tech skills (the last course being based around coding) but is also designed to show them how these skills can be used creatively and builds their confidence. Feeling supported by the group is as important for these girls as the skills themselves, when they are given little or no encouragement from their schools and peers concerning their interests. Chelsea told me they plan to continue these Girl Geek Academies at FACT, with courses on music and fashion tech to further demonstrate to young girls how many creative paths tech skills can lead them into and soon hope to be offering workshops to universities around Liverpool.

Not only do the Liverpool Girl Geeks encourage teenage girls to take career paths in the tech industry, they also want to inspire women of all ages into learning tech skills. As we are living in a world where children can do more with an iPad than the parent, it is understandable that we all need to learn to be tech-literate. The job market of the 21^st Century demands we must be masters of our own publicity and demonstrate to any potential employer how tech savvy we are.  

On Thursday 8^th December Liverpool Girl Geeks is hosting a workshop: Get Your Head Around Code. As code is the language used to create apps and websites, it is an extremely useful skill to have and this workshop is for all abilities even the extremely technologically challenged (like me). So if you want the chance to learn a valuable skill in a supportive friendly environment you should definitely join me there.

6 Tech Things You Need To Know About

6 Tech Things You Need To Know About

Ahhh, technology! What a confusing yet wonderful thing it can be. I've been tech-obsessed ever since I got a Nintendo DS when I was a teenager and learnt how to create my first profile on Bebo. With technology advancing and changing all the time, and our social media feeds being over saturated with information, it's hard to find the best that technology has to offer. I've narrowed down some of my favourite things on the internet & social media of the moment, so you can discover them too!

Podcasts!

The Podcast app has been on my Iphone for years, as it's one that's automatically downloaded by Apple. It was only until this year that I finally started using this part of my phone and I'm so glad I did! As long as they're all pre - downloaded, the app doesn't require Wifi/3G to be used, so you can literally select any one of your downloaded playlists and listen to it wherever you are. So you can make that walk round the park an educational one, pop your phone nearby while you take a bath, make that 5 minutes in the dentist waiting room a little less dull, or pop a podcast on while you cook your dinner - whenever, wherever, as Shakira would say (lol). I've been loving listening to Emma Gannon's Ctrl Alt Delete podcasts, No Such Thing As Fish, Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4, The Guardian's Science Weekly and so much more - it's the perfect way to fill your spare time with some thought provoking topics and get that brain ticking along. You can pick literally anything from comedy, to learning a new language, interviews or philosophical topics and more - so go onto that unused Podcast app on your phone and learn something new!

www.radiooooo.com

A friend introduced me to this fantastic website and it's so much fun and a must for any music lover! Though it's pretty self explanatory once you go onto the site, I'll summarise it anyway! You can basically select any country on the map, and choose an era and the site will pick a song at random from that era in that country. You can also create a 'taxi ride' (playlist) where you can select as many different decades and destinations as you want then you can share it with friends and it will take you on a 'taxi ride' through time in music. It's such good fun and I've discovered some really amazing music through this website.

Into The Fold mag: www.intothefoldmag.com

Former blogger Camilla Ackley quite recently re-launched her blog as an online magazine and it's becoming one of my favourite go to sites to do a bit of reading. You can read about her story in The Guardian here, it's very interesting! ITF features opinion pieces, real-life experiences, style and travel posts and more. I've read some really interesting articles on there and it's inspired me to take my blog in a slightly different direction and get other writers involved with my blog. I love what she's doing and I think other bloggers should take note too!

35 MM - A group for cinephiles: www.vimeo.com/groups/35mmandrisdamburs

Again, a friend introduced me to this group on Vimeo.com during my first year of university and afterwards I ended up spending hours on there, watching video after video, but it's super interesting and informative! They're kind of like visual essays, where creators can share their view on the history of 35mm cinema, quotes of famous directors, documentary, music and animation on film and more. It's perfect for film students if you want to research a little further into a film/director you're studying and helps you see things in films you may have not noticed before!

Coding

As previously mentioned in the Girl Guide on my blog about Liverpool Girl Geeks, coding is becoming the new IT topic in the tech world and it's actually pretty exciting! Though there is still so many changes to be made in the world, it's amazing that people (including model Karlie Kloss) are creating coding classes for young girls to get involved with. Basically coding is what makes up the websites we go onto and the apps we use on our smartphones and tablets. Social media and technology are forever changing therefore giving girls the chance to learn how to get involved in a big way is a huge step forward for society. 

Ted Talks: https://www.ted.com/

Similarly to podcasts, I've been a little addicted to watching Ted Talks as of late. TED began appearing randomly on my Facebook feed about 2 years ago and I got hooked. Now I can watch them on their website, app or YouTube Channel and there are so many videos to choose from. TED is devoted in spreading ideas normally through the form of short, powerful talks by inspiring people - philosophers, psychologists, teachers, professors, models, journalists, doctors, scientists...you name it! There's always something thought provoking to listen to and it's a great way to spend your time online.

The Film Club #7

The Film Club #7

A round up of my current favourite films...

What about Bob?

This is probably one of the best comedies I've seen in a long time - to the point where I laughed out loud on several occasions - I mean, I didn't even check my phone during this movie! What About Bob? stars Bill Murray who plays the phobia-prone Bob Wiley, a neurotic man from New York diagnosed with “multi-phobic personality characterized by acute separation anxiety and extreme need for family connections”. After a meeting with his psychiatrist and best selling self-help book author, Marvin - Bob decides to follow him on his family holiday, after taking his book, and Marvin's advice a little too seriously. As the vacation goes on, Bob doesn't take the hint and continues to involve himself in Marvin's life and family - the family embrace Bob...but Marvin doesn't approve and practically has a meltdown. This is a really great black comedy, entertaining and heart warming all at the same time. Me and my friend both agreed that, without the comedy aspect to this and the upbeat soundtrack, this could easily have been more of a pyscho thriller like Shutter Island. Luckily, it's not so dark, and you are encouraged to see the funny side of it all. Bill Murray plays the part extremely well too.

9/10

The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects starts off with the explosion of a ship, leaving 27 men dead - at the forefront of the crime are 5 suspects. The film goes through the lead up to this mysterious event, taking all sorts of twists and turns, kind of like a 'murder mystery' type thing. This kind of movie is ideal for those that like to try and work out what's going on and pick up clues along the way...in the end it took a big twist I wasn't expecting. Really well shot, Kevin Spacey is fab and the movie is overall really entertaining.

8/10

 Café Society

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I thought -  Woody Allen - yes. Steve Carrell - yes. Blake Lively - yes. And other well-known actors - yessss. However I would say the movie was a bit more mmyeah than yes...am I making sense here? As some other Woody Allen films normally are, this was based around a love triangle/love square. Bobby (played by Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network) leaves NYC for the glamorous 1930s Hollywood - he lands a job there with his uncle and instantly falls for Vonnie (Kristin Stewart)...however, she already has her heart taken by someone else, someone linked closely to Bobby... he falls out of love, then in love again etc etc. It was a nice movie to the pass the time - lots of nice costumes, make up, hair, set design and so on but won't stick in my mind for long...but take what you want from it and interpret it as you wish.

6/10

The Dreamers

This movie literally had me in love from the first scene. It's the 1960's in Paris and the student riots brings together three youths, an American exchange student, Matthew along with French twins, Théo and Isabelle. They bond over a mutual love of cinema and Matthew is fascinated by the twins and their (albeit, rather odd) intimacy with one another - the twins were born conjoined. Théo and Isabelle's parents go away for a month, leaving the three at their place to do as they please...and everything get's a lil bit weeeeeeird. I'm not sure my love for this film followed on from the first scene but nevertheless it was all quite fascinating and had me hooked start to finish. Expect some sexual scenes, sexy French accents, mopeds and beautiful Parisian backdrops. 

7/10

Sweet Sixteen

As part of my realism in cinema module, we were asked to watch one of Ken Loach's best work, Sweet Sixteen. The movie is set in Scotland and having been brought up in Glasgow myself, some locations and style of characters (aka. n.e.d.s - chavs) were quite familiar, as well as the Scottish slang and accent - I'd recommend subtitles, because even at some points I didn't understand what was being said, the accents are that thick! Sweet Sixteen is a gritty drama about a young man, Liam, who, despite trying his best to do good, just gets caught up in crime and the wrong crowd. He hopes that his imprisoned mother will be free by his 16th birthday, and wants to help her escape her toxic heroin-addict and abusive boyfriend - but Liam ends up getting pulled further into trouble with all the wrong people. This film is so raw and gritty that it didn't feel like watching a film anymore, which is what Ken Loach does best. 

9/10

Before The Flood

Last but certainly not least of today's film club is Leonardo Dicaprio's/National Geographic's collaboration in Before The Flood. Dicaprio meets with scientists, activists and world leaders (inc. Obama) to discuss the severity of climate change and the possible solutions to combat it. I'm so used to hearing Dicaprio's voice in feature films, so it was hard to realise that this wasn't any old made up story, but in fact, our reality. So before watching this, forget Leo as an actor, just think of him as a person, like you and me...trying to send out a very important message. The documentary takes you on a journey through diverse ecological systems and you are shown how already certain countries are struggling due to destruction and how our consumerism contributes to this. It's a powerful and sobering watch and opened my eyes a little bit wider to this problem. It's a must watch for absolutely everyone of us, and in particular all elected leaders to see global warming as a top priority. I think the film does a very good job in teaching you a lot, and motivating you to get involved, however it is all a bit overwhelming and probably needs to be watched a few times to really digest the information and act on it.

9/10