You may recall a few months ago that I was lucky enough to take a treasure hunt around Regent Street with the Girl Geeks. Well, last Wednesday they proved that internet marketing training can be loads of fun by throwing a fabulous 5th anniversary dinner at the Google Headquarters in Victoria. I was lucky enough to secure myself an invite to the event just 24 hours before it was due to start.

The Google Headquarters were fantastic and although we only visited the canteen, a lot of girls left the event deciding that they wanted to work for Google. This could have been due to the smoothie machine, ice-cream fridge or tuck-shop which offers free food to their staff round the clock, or it could have been because of the funky bowler hat lights and playful Google computers – either way Google definitely looks like a fun place to work.

The event started off with cupcakes and wine from Dinastia Vivanco and I found myself talking to people who had travelled down to the event from places as far afield as Leeds and Glasgow. This was my first Girl Geek Dinner but some girls had been members of Girl Geeks from the start and in the past five years had enjoyed many great anniversary dinners at places like eBay and Symantec.

We were lucky enough to try some of the delicious food that the Google employees enjoy every day and opted for a salmon fillet in a white wine and peppercorn sauce with new potatoes and sticky toffee fudge ice-cream to follow. After we’d eaten we settled down to watch the event’s speakers.

The first speaker of the evening was Google’s very own Sarah Gordon, a test engineer for Google mobile. Sarah joined the company three years ago and in her time has seen the rise of the smart-phone. Sarah used her own interest of travelling to show how the smart phone had evolved and how nowadays instead of packing various guidebooks you could simply download a guidebook app onto your mobile phone, giving you all the information that you need. Sarah is currently working on an application that allows you to scan a menu in a foreign restaurant for an English translation.

The next speaker, Dr Sue Black gave such an incredible speech that she managed to get #LGGD5 trending on Twitter as all the girl geeks starting tweeting about how amazing her presentation was. Dr Black wasn’t talking about Twitter though; she was talking about the women of Bletchley Park, which is a cause very close to her heart. Bletchley Park is where the code breakers cracked the German Enigma code in WW2 and also where the world’s first programmable computer, Colossus was built. When Sue visited the site she was heartbroken to see that it had fallen into disrepair and has been raising awareness for the site ever since. Most of her campaign was done via social media and through using Twitter she managed to get Stephen Fry on board and raise money via Just Giving.

Our last speech was by Glenn Morgan from British Airways whose personal motto is “There is no such thing as an IT project, only a business project”. Glenn is passionate about technology and has launched three applications with British Airways. The first one would be of interest to Sarah as it allows you to check in to flights using your mobile phone, whereas the second application was probably the most impressive looking – a giant map of the world, where users can upload video and content to individual airports, and write reviews and suggestions for places to visit nearby. The new website certainly looked impressive but one could argue that what they’re doing isn’t really social media as it doesn’t effectively build a community but just let’s people share content for the sake of it. Still I know that when it finally goes live I definitely be one of the first people on there looking at other people’s travel photos!

The event ended after Glenn’s talk, where I just had time to pick up my Google goody bag and Green and Black’s chocolates before heading back home. The night was a huge success and I not only learnt a great deal, but I also met some lovely people. Thanks to Google and Girl Geek Dinners for arranging such a great evening – I can’t wait until next year!