Recently I was very honored to receive a letter asking me to join Flanders DC as Board Member. Why is this so special and important to me?  Well, it is quite simple: I will get the chance to help guiding Flanders on the way to innovation & entrepreneurship at home and abroad. A very crucial challenge!  As innovative e-commerce pioneer since 1999, I feel lucky to transmit some little parts of our Bivolino.com experience. I will be able to give my personal micro SME touch in this “multicultural” Board which is for the first time mixing people coming from 3 different worlds: Politics, Academia & Business.

Born in 2004, Flanders DC was launched by the Flemish Government as independent non-profit association. Till now, it has achieved quite a tremendous job with a small team of people. From big international events like the Creativity World Forum to local events like The Future Summit, from International Flanders DC Networks, to research studies on topics like e-Business, downstream innovation, index of creative economy, … to some special initiatives like Flanders DC Fellows or online training modules…. with different target groups like schools pupils, SME’s, …It has been a good 5 years start but now that the project comes into a more mature position, some measures need to be taken:

“Een grote vereniging zal eerder sterven van een indigestie van te veel opportuniteiten, dan uitgehongerd te zijn van te weinig, zo aub focus, focus en focus !!!“

My personal dream is: “Let Flanders DC be the Iphone of the Flemish Creativity”!

Recently, Clo Willaert , our belgian queen of the blog & organiser of the  Girl Geek Dinner group , invited 40 bloggers for a special day event in London. I was honoured to be part of this community beeing able to test a new ground-breaking application for smart phones using Flickr to share photos &  Twitter for tips messages. The idea is to be able to follow and contact each other in real time during a Shopping day in London.

Eurostar brought us to London for an exclusive shopping hunt and gave us a number of great advantages. In more than 9 shops in Regent Street, we enjoyed discounts and whole bunch of other advantages : a glass of Champagne in the Swarovski Crystallized Lounge, …

We also followed an unique presentation in the Apple Store. Molly Flat, female blogger for the Guardian and Jess Greenwood of Contagious Magazine, gave us an overview of the top 10 trends of 2009.

As you can see here, this great application contains an interactive map of London where you can see all the participating shops and the precise position of all the 40 bloggers. We can also post messages and pictures with the application and automatically exchange them with the others!

Just listen to an interview about what a Girl Geek really is here:

And now back to online shopping!

Tagged: Eurostar, Girl Geek Dinner, London, Shopping ]]> http://cmoitier.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/shop-and-blog-till-you-drop-ggsl-london/feed/ 1 cmoitier map http://cmoitier.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/she-goes-ict/ http://cmoitier.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/she-goes-ict/#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:58:50 +0000 cmoitier http://cmoitier.wordpress.com/?p=99 ]]>

Patricia Ceysens, Open VLD-politica and Flemish minister of economy, entrepreneurs, science, innovation and foreign trade, states in a Belgian business and technology website, Data News, that women, ICT and technonogy are no obvious combination. The causes for this problem can be found in education first, then in the employment and finally in the image of the ICT sector itself.

Therefore, the Flemish goverment is working on serveral solutions for this problem. Like investing 9.1 million Euros in a sensitization policy that has to make young women more interested in  science and helps them to opt for a scientific or ICT discipline.

But there are other possibilities. Women are inspired by role models. Not that we absolutely should seek a female ‘Bill Gates’, but there are enough examples to us of female role models who made it in the world of science,mathematics and ICT.

For example Carine Moitier. This former marketer began in 1998 with Bivolino.com,  a website where you can order your custom made shirt. Nobody believed that fashion was possible on the Internet. As a pioneer of e-commerce in Belgium, it increased its turnover by 77% and won numerous prizes for her ‘world-Shop’. Someone who proved as a woman that ICT, women, and innovation indeed go together.