Inspiring girls to be tech pioneers: Belinda Parmar at TEDxThessaloniki

Although they consume technology equally to, and perhaps more, than men, women seem to be excluded from technology making, says Belinda Parmar, who seeks to change this fact through her own organization "Lady Geek". For Belinda, in order to engage women in becoming technologists first we need to subverse the malpractices and to shatter the stereotypes borne by parents, school teachers and companies alike. Revolutionizing the female contribution in the technological domain is the challenge that both women and society are expected to live up to nowadays if we consider seriously that investing in girls is investing in smart economics.

Belinda is the founder and CEO of Lady Geek and the author of "Little Miss Geek". After spending over 18 years in marketing and advertising in some of the world's most influential advertising agencies, Belinda launched Lady Geek in June 2010. Lady Geek is a campaigning agency that aims to make technology and games more appealing and accessible to women and girls. Belinda and her team have been consulting corporate clients on how to transform the way they sell in retail to women advertising, social media and web content and are currently transforming the retail experience for women in Johannesburg. Lady Geek's client list includes Xbox, Vodafone, Microsoft, Nokia, Kaspersky and Sony. In 2011, Lady Geek won Best Breakthrough Internet Company by Red Magazine. Little Miss Geek is the social side of the business, helping through workshops younger girls be inspired by a career in the technology and games industry.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)