On January 31, 2008, over 600 girl geeks and their male guests gathered at the Googleplex for the 1st Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner in the United States. Girl Geek Dinners have been held in London, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Brussels, Malaysia, and more. This Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner is the first of its kind in the U.S.

Katherine Barr, a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, moderated the diverse panel of women in tech discussing building credibility and reputation in technology and business — women such as Irene Au, Google’s Director of User Experience; Rashmi Sinha, CEO of SlideShare; Leah Culver, Co-Founder and Lead Developer of Pownce; and Sumaya Kazi, Sun Microsystem’s Social Media Manager and serial entrepreneur by age 25.

The panelists shared their experiences as women in technology, the struggle to gain respect in the tech industry, and the funny things they experienced in work and life. While the panel focused mostly on the panelists’ individual experiences, the audience asked for advice on how to survive as a woman in a male-dominated technical culture. Women asked such questions as, how do you dress for occasions, how do you deal with lack of respect in the office, and how do you have it all? — both children and an executive career, as in the case of Irene.

Google Sites, a new offering from Google Apps, makes creating a team site as easy as editing a document. Use Google Sites to centralize all types of information — from videos to presentations — and share your site with just a few people, your entire organization, or the world.

Learn more at:
http://sites.google.com

The new “My Location” (beta) feature on Google Maps for mobile helps you know where you are on the map, even if your phone doesn’t have GPS. Just press [0] to move the map to your approximate location. Save time and tedious keystrokes finding where you are, what’s around you, and how to get there.

In October 2007, Google announced that it was partnering with IBM to provide largescale cluster computing resources to undergraduate computer science students along with a creative commons licensed curriculum. Using the cluster and curriculum as a starting point, students have been able to develop some compelling projects.

On February 21, 2008 at Google’s headquarters, ten teams announce their intention to participate in Google’s Lunar X Prize competition. Google will award $30 million in prizes for the first two teams to land a robotic rover on the moon and send images and other data back home.