A global dinner network for women

What is global-dinner-network?
Global-Dinner-Network (GDN) connects women worldwide for the experience of “dinner with a friend” anytime, anywhere. It could be used for whatever dinner with a friend means to you: good food, interesting conversation, chatting about personal or career-related issues – or simply laughing and having fun.
With GDN you can do this in your own home town, but more importantly when you're travelling for business or pleasure – which are times when many women feel isolated or just would like to make better use of their time in a foreign city.
As the first global meeting point for female travellers and locals, GDN helps you connect with local women, which is a great way of finding out more about the city and how other people live. Independent travel is made easier through GDN, enabling social interaction in a comfortable and safe environment.
GDN is not only about meeting up for dinner, lunch or coffee, it is also a powerful medium for business networking or to encounter women with similar interests, e.g. running, yoga, theatre or cinema, clubbing...

How did Global-Dinner-Network come about?
While sitting alone in my hotel room on a business trip in a foreign city, I thought “What can I do to make my time here more enjoyable? I want to go out to a fancy restaurant or bar, but I don't know where to go, and is it ok to go alone or will I be pestered? I also would like to go for a run, but where is it safe here? Surely I'm not the only woman having room service alone? Maybe there are locals, that would also enjoy going out and showing me their favourite places or simply making new contacts in a relaxed atmosphere.”
The train of thoughts kept piling up, then I organized them around an idea…so GDN was born!

What do you want to achieve?
I would like to enable every women to easily meet other interesting women either in their own area (e.g. for new business contacts) or while they are travelling, to get tips and advice from women locally. My dream is for Global-Dinner-Network to open a door to every woman, so she could to do what she wants to do, no matter where, when or whether it is for private or for business reasons. Because GDN can help you to get tips, advice and connections through other women that inspire and can help you to do what you would like to do.

How does GDN work?
It is very simple, first you register with a name and your nearest GDN city and then you can search the site by country and by city to contact women you would like to get in touch with. There are two membership’s levels: “personal” which is designed for anyone wishing to access the site for private use only and “professional”, intended for anyone who desires to use GDN for networking in the business context.

Which feedbacks did you get?
When I first launched the site, I was thrilled to get replies from all of the global-dinner-network members I had contacted in Berlin. With those, that were available we had a nice dinner at the Goldrot on the Kurfürstendamm. It was a very nice evening in a relaxed atmosphere and I was very inspired by the discussions about the individual personal and professional experiences. Here are some testimonials of women who used GDN.

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Hey Tanja, I am sorry but I will be leaving to Vegas on Monday, not returning to the city until Friday. What a shame - would have loved to catch up for a dinner. There are some great girls on the dinner network and meetings have been really fun. If you ever get back to NYC let me know and hopefully that will work out. Have fun while you are here. Cheers Gudrun

At the After-Shopping-Apero in Berlin the director of the gallery said about the global-dinner-networker: "all are surprisingly open-minded and friendly women"

Dear Tanja,
… during lunch time on friday I had the opportunity to meet Jutta from GDN, the meeting was great.
So again a great tool if you use it….
Best regards,
Nancy
...

Future steps?
We wish for every woman to be part of our Global-Dinner-Network around the globe, and in order to achieve this, we need to expand geographically and increase the number of users worldwide to reach the necessary critical mass. The expatriate women from Paguro could help us by joining the Global-Dinner-Network as they would be “perfect” local buddies for the travelling women to get tips, advices and to find mother language dinner companions.
GDN  is also seeking GDN-Ambassadors, which would coordinate local events in the GDN cities to make it more popular and help us make this a truly Global Dinner Network!