Tag Archives: Panel Discussion

Dinner #31 on October 23, 2014

Amazon is excited to host the October Seattle Girl Geek Dinner on their South Lake Union Campus and will be raffling off a Fire TV and Game Controller along with a $100 Amazon GC for attendees. The evening will have a social mixer to kick off the evening with food and drinks provided followed by a panel discussion and Q&A. Come learn about the entire lifecycle of game development from women in technology at Amazon.

Eventbrite - Seattle Girl Geek Dinner #31

Where:

Amazon Campus in the Arizona Building located at 207 Boren Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98109 (The building parking garage entrance is located on Thomas Street along with street parking available around the building)

Agenda:

6-6:30pm Happy Hour Social Mixer
6:30-7:15pm Tech talk and panel discussion by women leaders in the gaming community
7:15-7:30pm Q&A
Raffle – Fire TV and Game Controller along with a $100 Amazon GC.
We will have Amazon tables set up for resume review/feedback for attendees who are interested

What to bring:

Your photo ID – Visitors: Must enter, register with valid photo ID, and obtain a visitor badge through Amazon Reception located on the first floor
Parking Validation: If you are parking in the building garage, you can validate the parking at the reception

Dinner #22 on September 18, 2013

Expedia, one of the world’s leading online travel companies, invites you to join us, network with other technology enthusiasts, and learn about some of our products. Our panel of speakers will discuss how Expedia is using technology is used at Expedia and how we are using it to revolutionize travel.

When: Wednesday, September 18

Time: 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Venue: Expedia Inc. Headquarters

Address: 333 108th Ave. NE, Bellevue, WA 98006

Register for this event on Eventbrite!

Eventbrite - Seattle Girl Geek Dinner #22

Map: http://binged.it/xrDyJp

Parking: Parking is available at the Expedia Inc. building parking lot and nearby establishments. Please note that parking will not be validated.

Public Transit: If you are planning to take the bus, the closest stop is Bellevue Transit Center. The- Expedia building is a couple of blocks from there.

Agenda:

6:00 – 6:45  Check-in, networking

6:45 – 8:00  Panel discussion & Q/A

8:00 – 8:30  Raffle and more networking

Dinner, dessert, wine and non-alcoholic beverages will be served.

Panelists

Kristin Graham, VP – Engagement

Kristin has been at Expedia for more than 6 years and leads global communications and employee programs for Expedia, Inc.’s companies, which have more than 150 sites in more than 70 countries. Her team oversees global communication & events, philanthropy, diversity, and engagement/branding initiatives. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Aman Bhutani, SVP – Technology

Aman Bhutani leads the engineering team for the Expedia brand. The brand technology team focuses on the web tier of our global platform and services that offer differentiation from other brands. The Expedia technology team is at the heart of the brand’s product based growth strategy and has team members in many cities across the planet. Aman joined Expedia in 2010 after many years in financial services and consulting.

Sarah Gavin, Director – Public Relations

As Director of Public Relations and Social Media for Expedia, Sarah Gavin holds responsibility for influential programs across press, bloggers, broadcast and social media for the Expedia brand. Sarah has a strong background in technology communications and came to Expedia after six years at Waggener Edstrom where she worked on Windows and Internet Explorer. Sarah is passionate about the marriage of technology and travel and joined the Expedia team in fall 2011.

Jennifer Capasso, Director – SEM Product and Technology

I started my career in consulting, and then went to get an MBA at Carnegie Mellon, which first sparked my interest in technology.  I joined Expedia as a product manager 6 years ago. I have worked on both our hotel and check out product and last year, I moved from the customer facing web product to SEM {Search Engine Marketing} product and technology.

Maria Tiganus, Sr.  Software Engineer in Test

Originally from Romania, I came to the US 7 years ago, with a dual degree in Computer Science and Economics. I joined Expedia five and a half years ago, and I have been working in BFS (Best Fare Search) ever since. As a Software engineer in Test  for BFS & Air Shopping,  my role is to ensure that the quality of our product thrives with every release, leveraging developed automation to guarantee high performance, accuracy and competitiveness in the results.  I love psychology and movies, which is what I occupy my spare time with.

Julia Stefani, Technical Product Manager

I am originally from Tirana, Albania. I moved to the states to do my undergraduate studies in Computer Science and Business Administration/Finance at Truman State University. I then moved to St. Louis, MO where I got my graduate degree in Information Management from Washington University of St. Louis. I joined Expedia in April 2012 as a Technical Product Manager for the Mobile Web team in San Francisco. I love learning new things, traveling, foreign languages, food/cooking and keeping up with technology.

Register for this event on Eventbrite. Eventbrite - Seattle Girl Geek Dinner #22

Dinner #19 on May 9, 2013

Hello Seattle Girl Geeks!

Great news — Capital One ShareBuilder is hosting our 19th Girl Geek Event on Thursday, May 9, 6–8 p.m.

This Girl Geek Event will focus on how ShareBuilder makes investing and saving for retirement straightforward and affordable. And they’ve come up with some pretty innovative ways to do it, including a customizable iPad® app that they built from the ground up. Plus, ShareBuilder’s website ranked #1 in design and usability among online brokerages in 2011 by Corporate Insight*.

So if you’ve ever felt intimidated by investing or have ever wondered how “investing” and “tech innovation” could go together in the same sentence, sign up for an evening of food, drinks, interactive demos and friendly conversation.

The event will be held in ShareBuilder’s offices, located in Pioneer Square’s historic Seattle Hardware Company building. Want to join us? Register now on Eventbrite and mark your calendar.

Eventbrite - Seattle Girl Geek Dinner #19

When: Thursday, May 09, 2013
Time: 6:00–8:00 p.m.
Agenda:
6:00-6:30: Networking
6:30-7:00: Panel discussion: How we get a product from concept to market at ShareBuilder
7:00-8:00: More networking, interact with our newest web, tablet and phone apps.

* #1 broker website for design and usability as ranked by Corporate Insight’s 2011 website study of 19 of the investment industry’s well-known retail brokerages. This comprehensive benchmarking study graded sites on 300+ attributes, using a 4-point scale of predefined criteria. In addition, the study used investor opinions (gathered in 1,000 interviews in April 2011) about the importance of site features to weight the grades for each attribute.
Securities products are offered by Capital One ShareBuilder, Inc. a registered broker-dealer and Member FINRA/SIPC. Capital One ShareBuilder, Inc. is a subsidiary of Capital One Financial Corporation.

Securities products are: Not FDIC insured • Not bank guaranteed • May lose value

Dinner #14 on February 16, 2012

We’re very excited to announce Dinner 14, which will be at Expedia’s offices in Bellevue.

Be sure to sign up on Eventbrite to ensure your spot!

Expedia loves travel and we love technology. Join us for a fun night of networking with other women in technology. Enjoy refreshments, games & prizes. Hear from our passionate panel of speakers as they discuss how technology has affected the travel industry. They’ll also share their experiences, insight and travel tips from Expedia, where we are revolutionizing travel through technology

When: February 16

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Where: 333 108th Ave. NE, Bellevue, WA 98006

Map: http://binged.it/xrDyJp

Parking: There are two entrances to the parking lot. One on 4th Street and the other on 108th Avenue NE. Parking will not be validated. There may be free parking in nearby establishments.

Public Transit: If you are planning to take buses, the closest stop is Bellevue Transit Center. You will have to walk a couple of blocks to the Expedia building.

 

Agenda:

Networking Game

Panel discussion & Q/A

Dinner: We will have pasta and wine for dinner. Non-alcoholic beverages will be available.

 

Welcome & Introductions: Dara Khosrowshahi, President and CEO

 

Expedia Panelists:

 

Kristen Graham, VP Engagement & Communications

Kristin has been at Expedia for 5 years and leads employee programs for Expedia, Inc.’s companies, which have more than 100 sites in more than 60 countries. Her team oversees employee communication & events, philanthropy, learning & development, diversity, and engagement/branding initiatives. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

 

Aman Bhutani, VP Development

Aman Bhutani leads the engineering team for the Expedia brand. The brand technology team focuses on the web tier of our global platform and services that offer differentiation from other brands. The Expedia technology team is at the heart of the brand’s product based growth strategy and has team members in many cities across the planet. Aman joined Expedia in 2010 after many years in financial services and consulting.

 

Katie Lykins, Software Development Engineer

Katie Lykins is a developer on the Package Discovery Service team at Expedia. She’s been at Expedia for 4 years and prior to Expedia, she worked at two different local small companies. She’s a true local, having been born and raised in Seattle and going to the University of Washington. In her free time, she’s active in playing basketball, volleyball and tennis.

 

Diane Omuoyo, Performance Engineer

Diana Omuoyo graduated with a Masters Degree in Information Systems from Baylor University, Waco. Her career in IT has spanned different roles and industries; including Web/Application Development, Network Tech, Business Intelligence and now Performance Engineering. She’s originally from Cleveland, OH and relocated to Egencia last year. During her free time she enjoys playing tennis and music, reading books and travelling adventures.

Sign up on Eventbrite! We look forward to seeing you there!

 

–Liz and Stevi

Dinner #11 on June 23, 2011

Hello again Geek Girls!

The Bing Design team has offered to host a design centric Geek Girl Dinner. For the first hour of our dinner, we will have an amazing panel composed of several key designers from Bing. They will discuss the latest innovations in design and the various career paths you can take in this discipline.

Not to mention, Bing is hosting our dinner in the café on the 23rd floor of Bravern 2 Bldg in Bellevue. Be prepared for some amazing views of Lake Washington! Side note: parking will be validated …

In the spirit of girl power, the Bing Design team will also be raffling off a $100 gift card to Bravern. You must be present to win!

The dinner is on June 23, and starts at 6 pm. Space is limited, so be sure to register at the Eventbrite page

Below are the biographies of our panelist. We look forward to seeing you again next month!

 

-Liz, Stevi, and Vanessa

 

Laura Kerr

UX DIRECTOR, Bing

Laura is a firm believer in the power of people and the strength of emotional design. She has over a decade of large-scale, consumer-facing services experience at Microsoft. She SKUs toward V1 problems, of which she still believes Search is one. At Bing, she is working toward an integrated approach that redefines a cultural balance between experience design and technology.

Laura is a Minnesota native but has been in Seattle long enough to truly appreciate the fog and rain and the quiet reflection it offers. She has an eclectic collection of higher degrees, has lived in Greece, Italy, and speaks several languages. She loves to swing dance, explore food culture, and play with her most awesome 2-yr old daughter, Chloe.

Mira Lane

Bing Design PM Lead – Studio Management, Prototyping, UX PM

Mira Lane has been leading User Experience innovation in Bing for the past 5 years. Her most recent accomplishments include the successful launch of Bing where her team was responsible for much of the visible innovations in the product from the homepage to results page. Her innovations have resulted in numerous patents for Microsoft spanning aggregation of categorized opinion data to different methods of previewing and displaying faceted search data. Upon returning from her second maternity leave, Mira has shifted her focus to design validation, prototyping and PM for horizontal user experience features.

Mira graduated from the University of Waterloo with degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics. She has worked as a developer at Quack.com in the silicon valley, which was acquired by AOL, and later at Nuance building speech-driven applications.

Outside of work Mira has a full plate as an artist, a mother of two, and outdoor enthusiast. Though her recent family additions have limited her to Rattlesnake Ledge, her outdoor pursuits have taken her from the mountaintop of Kilimanjaro, to Everest basecamp to backpacking around Asia.

Christina Koehn

User Experience Designer, Bing

Christina has been working professionally as a graphic designer since 2007 and is currently a User Experience Designer for Bing.com. Bing is Microsoft’s search engine and is changing the way that people think about search and finding information on the web.

Prior to this, Christina spent time working with the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices division on interface and information design for connected entertainment and for various print and web design agencies in the Seattle area. Her most recent projects at Bing include a redesign of the global visual language system, as well as many design iterations around html5, and the next generation of search.

Christina graduated from the University of Washington in 2007 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication Design and a minor in Art History. When not working, Christina loves to stay active by running and training for half marathons, playing volleyball, doing yoga and volunteering as a dog runner at the Seattle Humane Society and also enjoys traveling and reading about design and technology.

Goldie Chaudhuri

Program Manager

Goldie Chaudhuri joined Bing in the last year and has worked on Windows 8 and the Bing iPad app. She recently joined Bing Design as one of their first Program Managers, working on cross-device cross-team projects. Prior to Bing, Goldie worked on various experimental prototypes like Seadragon and Pivot at Live Labs and Spatial Databases at SQL Server.

Goldie graduated with majors in Computer Engineering and Studio Art from Case Western Reserve University, a weird but awesome campus spread out through 80 of Cleveland’s museums and non-profits. She grew up in Jacksonville, Florida and now lives in Capitol Hill where in her spare time she likes printmaking, soldering glowing costumes, geeking out about food and Belgian beers, wandering farmers markets and folk festivals, travelling, doing yoga, and biking around when it’s sunny.

Dinner #10 on May 18, 2011

Happy Spring Geek Girls!

Facebook will be hosting our next Girl Geek Dinner in May! Our community will have the opportunity to check out their new digs in downtown Seattle, enjoy some deelish appetizers, and listen to a panel discussion about “Life as a Facebook Engineer.” The panel will consist of the following women from the engineering ranks at Facebook:

Amy Platt, Software Engineer
Jocelyn Goldfein, Director, Engineering
Kari Lee, Manager, Engineering
Raylene Yung, Software Engineer

There are a limited number of registration seats available (due to size of location), so please register at the Eventbrite site as soon as you can!

If you decide you cannot make it, please email us to cancel your registration so your other fellow girl geeks can attend.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Stevi, Liz, and Vanessa

Roundtable speaker bios

Tomorrow’s the big day for our first Seattle area Girl Geek Dinner. We’ll be having a roundtable discussion. Our speakers will include Dorothy Nicholls, Randy Granovetter and Rebecca Black.

It’s not too late to join us! Sign up at our EventBrite page to let us know you’re coming. We can’t wait to meet everybody!

Dorothy Nicholls
Senior Development Manager, Digital Media Group, Amazon

Dorothy Nicholls is a senior development manager at Amazon’s Digital Media group. Digital Media is a relatively new group at Amazon that launched Unbox (Video download), and DRM free MP3 download in 2007. Most recently her group introduced the revolutionary wireless reading device Kindle.

Dorothy has over 11 years of experience developing both large scale distributed eCommerce services, databases as well as consumer applications. She spent the first five of these years as a software developer and the last six years in technical leadership. During her nine years at Amazon, Dorothy has personally been involved or responsible for some of the major initiatives that visibly changed Amazon from launching Amazon internationally, moving Amazon’s eCommerce backend to service oriented architecture, Amazon Prime to launching external payments web services. Prior to Amazon, Dorothy worked at Oracle Corporation where she worked on large database applications for Nike and Boeing. Dorothy holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Brigham Young University.

Originally from China, Dorothy is an active board member of China Tomorrow Education Foundation, a non profit based in Seattle with a mission to improve rural education in China. She is also the occasional web master for the organization. Dorothy enjoys traveling, running, rock climbing, gardening, and reading books on her Kindle.

Randy Granovetter
General Manager for Innovations, Microsoft
IdeAgency

Randy Granovetter, the General Manager for Innovations, is spearheading Microsoft’s newly formed Innovations Team.  Her team’s charter is to champion innovation from across the company, developing community-based techniques and tools for sharing and capturing co-workers new ideas. With the collaboration and integration of feedback from executives, internal experts, and their peers, the IdeAgency provides the innovators with the website, training and support needed to grow their concept from the idea phase to proof of concept leveraging Microsoft platforms and tools.

Before joining Microsoft, Randy was the Founder and CEO of JABRA Corporation, President of Blyth Software Corporation, President of Digital Orchid, Vice President at Qualcomm for QUALCOMM’s Enterprise, Co-Branding and MVNO strategy development in Qualcomm Internet Services (QIS), the QUALCOMM division chartered with driving applications and services for the wireless internet.

Granovetter holds Master of Arts in Language development and Special Education and Bachelor of Science degrees in special education, elementary education and language development from Vanderbilt University.  She has received several industry awards including Star of the Industry by Computer Telephony Magazine and the Distinguished Woman Award by Telemarketing Magazine and Call Center Solutions, Order of the Long Leaf Pine in North Carolina presented by Governor Hunt, the MacUser Magazine Award for Desktop Publisher of the Year and a member of Kappa Delta Pi (Honor Society for Education).

Rebecca Black, Principal Test Manager
Microsoft Antimalware team

Rebecca Black is the Principal Test Manager of the Microsoft Antimalware team.  Her group creates the Antimalware engine and platform that protects hundreds of millions of users from viruses, rootkits, Trojans, bots, worms, spyware, adware and other malware.  The Microsoft Antimalware products include: Windows Defender, the Malicious Software Removal Tool, Windows Live OneCare, Forefront Client Security, and the Forefront suite of server products.  Microsoft Antimalware APIs are also called by a variety of applications, including Internet Explorer and Office applications.

She manages a large and diverse team of full time, contractor, and vendor employees in Redmond, China, and Australia.  She has sixteen years software development experience, thirteen years at Microsoft, eleven years of which have been in technical leadership.  Before Microsoft, Rebecca worked at Symantec, Peter Norton Group in the Product Support and Quality Assurance departments.

Rebecca has a Master’s Degree in Music from California Institute of the Arts.  She paid for college and graduate school by teaching clients how to use software and working as an independent software developer.

When not saving online users from bad guys, Rebecca enjoys scuba diving, reading, gardening, cooking, hiking, volunteering, and attending cultural events.  She is married and lives in Seattle with her husband, two cats and one very old dog.

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