Girls In Tech

This month, two-time founder and entrepreneur Devita Saraf debuted her latest company: Vu TelePresence(TM), based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This amazing woman has brought the company to the US from its Bombay, India origins where it is part of the parent organization, Zenith Group.  The precursor of this company is her first enterprise: Vu Technologies, maker of television and LCD monitors, also out of India. Her amazing journey from USC undergraduate to corporate leader is one I was lucky enough to interview her on recently.

About Vu TelePresence

Vu TelePresence(TM) is a global company specializing in telepresence and video conference manufacture, as well as a service provider with a team which is spread throughout the U.S., India, Europe and Asia.   Setting up video conferences via Vu TelePresence’s system — Vu’ing — is the newest way for the small and mid-sized business to achieve what can, in the end of the day, save the company money and improve their communication at the same time.  Says Ms. Saraf, “The ability to ‘read’ an individual’s body language during a meeting, be it with prospects, clients, vendors or employees, is priceless,” added Ms. Saraf. “Typical telecommunications like email, chat or phone simply cannot provide one a true sense of how a person ‘feels’ about your communication. Vu solves these issues by ‘putting’ you in the same room as your audience with the same benefits and productivity as being there in person…”

The company debuted in the U.S. October 20th at Interop in New York.  To read more, see our GIT Spotlight, here.

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Plenty of buzz has been tossed around recently about the lack of female entrepreneurs and technologists in the startup world. Although women own 41% of privately held companies in the US, only a mere 3-5% successfully obtain venture capital. While we’ve heard many of these shocking statistics about entrepreneurs, less has been written about the equally pathetic gender ratio on the investor side of the table. As Fred Wilson recently declared at a Change the Ratio event in New York City, “the VC industry is not just dominated by white males, but arrogant and obnoxious white males”.

According to The Diana Project, only 10% of VCs are female. Even the ones who successfully break into the industry are three times more likely than their male counterparts to be employed in entry and mid-level positions. Few are able to rise to a position where they make a material impact on investment decisions. These inequalities persist despite the fact that females make up the majority of the US population and drive the bulk of consumer decisions. Even in the internet world, female internet users already outnumber male users and will make up51.9% of the total online population by 2011. Fred Wilson noted that many male VCs lack the domain expertise to evaluate the business potential of companies that cater to female interests, such as fashion or beauty. Given these unique and growing opportunities, why are there so few women investors?

As everyone knows, breaking into the VC industry is tough. Positions open rarely and the ones that do are usually filled through close personal networks. Behavioral research has shown that we tend to favor people who are similar to us. Those making hiring decisions are likely to bring on interviewees with similar characteristics as themselves, thus perpetuating the old boy’s club. Additionally, VCs hiring for junior roles typically look for two types of candidates: those that have successfully founded a VC-backed startup in the past or those coming from comparable analyst positions in VC, investment banking, or private equity. Since finance is a male-dominated field and few female entrepreneurs successfully raise VC funding, the supply of females who fit these two templates is small. In technology sectors, the percentages can be worse due to the dearth of female engineers who launch high-tech startups.

Another factor hindering the entry of women into venture capital is a scarcity of role models in the field. We rarely catch a female name when we’re told about the heroes of the startup and VC worlds. What women need are models of success, such as entrepreneur-turned-VC Cindy Padnos who launched Illuminate Ventures last year with the message that more women in the VC business means more capital for female-owned businesses. Padnos analyzed the performance of women-led startups and discovered that women use less capital in running their companies and are more likely to succeed, yet they capture just a sliver of the venture capital pie.

With this in mind, the Girls in Tech NYC chapter is hosting a panel featuring women who have successfully broken into the VC industry and can serve as role models for those looking to do the same. While no panel can single-handedly solve a persistent gender gap, we hope to start educating ambitious young women about the possibilities of a career in venture capital. Featured speakers include Peggy Wallace of Golden Seeds, Melody Koh of Time Warner Investments, Christina Cacioppo of Union Square Ventures, and Sylvia Kuyel of Starvest Partners.

Girls in Tech – Entrepreneurship and Venture Series with Columbia Venture Community
Women in VC Panel, 11/10/10, 6:30 PM

Special thanks to the GIT NYC Thought and Event Lead for this event, Christine Lemke, fellow Entrepreneurial and Venture Thought/Event Lead, Melek Pulatkonak, as well as our partner, Alison Albeck Lindland (Columbia Venture Community) for their devotion and passion. Thanks to the GIT NYC managing team behind this event, Tommy Jenkins and Felicia Moeis.

Thank you to Joe Daniels of Hodgson Russ and Watchitoo for their support.

RSVP Here

Article originally published 10/27/2010 at FoundersBlock.com, a media platform and resource center for early-stage entrepreneurs.

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Join Girls in Tech and attend Silicon Valley Rocks!

Every year these masters of tech/music genius get together to rock the house for a great cause.  Local bands with artists from your fav companies like Apple, Rhapsody, SAY Media, and Oracle and Advent Software jam together & give a show that you will not soon forget.

Bands just announced include:

• LUCID MECHANISM — A sonic experience that gracefully abuses the preconceptions of live electronic music. Tech affiliations: Pyramind, Ex’pression College, Apple
• SID LUSCIOUS AND THE PANTS — Maximum new wave: the greatest 80′s band there never was. Tech affiliations: MOG, Gracenote, Rhapsody (co-creator), Liquid Audio & IODA (former employees)
• THE HOT TODDIES — Oakland’s sweethearts, The Hot Toddies mix 1950′s beach pop with indie rock riffs, a bottle of whiskey and a dry sense of humor.
• THE OPEN SOURCE BAND — SV’s original cover band featuring special guests Randi Zuckerberg, Chris Pan and Jay Webster and Larry Marcus, Andrew Stess, and Alison Murdock. Tech affiliations: Facebook, Quova, Walden Venture Capital, Amplified Music Services
• INGAR BROWN AND THE FUTURE FUNK — Funk, hip-hop, soul, dance and R&B all wrapped up in an eclectic box that’s ready to get any party started. Brown was on the short list for a Grammy nomination in 2009 and other band members come from Busta Groove.
• SONIC LOVE TONIC — Second place winners at the Emergenza Battle of the Bands in 2009, classic American rock ‘n roll with a hipster twist. Tech affiliations: Dogster, CBSi (CNET)
• RUBBERSIDEDOWN — Radio-friendly, 70′s hard rock with an alluring rough edge.
• COVERFLOW— Energetic and fun cover band who has made the tech-party circuit from TechCrunch to The Lobby.

Get your early bird discount tickets soon! Click here: http://svrocks2010.eventbrite.com/ — Do it this week before the prices go up!

Best of all  Music in Schools Today (MuST) is the main beneficiary of this awesome event. All proceeds for Silicon Valley Rocks! will be donated to support music education in schools, especially those low-income schools that need it the most.  It is proven that the learning of music by kids in school can very positively affect their academic careers.  (I can speak from experience, being a former flutist (and drummer in summer music school, if you can believe it. ) I thank my parents and grandparents every day for giving me the gift of music appreciation at an early age.  So please come out to support this great cause … And have a blast at the same time!

Note:  Earlybird pricing expires on November 1.

Event Details:

WHEN: 7:00PM on December 1, 2010

WHERE: Great American Music Hall:  850 O’Farrell Street, San Francisco – Between Polk & Larkin and Ellis & O’Farrell

WHO: Silicon Valley Rocks! benefiting Music in Schools Today (MuST)

TICKETS: Click Here

(photo credit: Ed Jay)

Tags: Christine Oneto, girls in tech, Great American Music Hall, Music in Schools today, Rhapsody, SAY Media, Silicon Valley Rocks, tech
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Over all the years, we as women have been given advice on how to manage our schedules, finances, our work/life balance, but what about our online social identity? With social networking sites/services popping up as fast as the corner Starbucks, how do we how does managing our social identities fit into the mix? Personally, I can think of about ten different networks that I use regularly off the top of my head. So the question is, how do I use them best, to benefit both my “online” and “offline” presence?

I have proposed this question to a few different groups of friends recently, “How do you manage your social identity?” “Who do you let into your social networking circle, and how do you interact with them?” It seems everyone does it a little differently, but the common theme I took away from all of the conversations was; discover your Brand! The person you are offline should match up with who you are online. After all, now a days there is a very small divide between on and offline communication. In my opinion, one of the most important things to keep in mind is the audience you are communicating to. Whether you are communicating to a network of business contacts, friends, family or a combination of all three, be aware of how and who you are conveying your message to. After all, you may have more exposure than you are aware of… According to Dan Schawbel, the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, in an article he wrote for Mashable,” We can have just as much presence as most start ups and mid-size companies and products”.

Like many other choices in our lives, I don’t think there is a cut and dry, right or wrong way to manage your online identity. I do however think there are some things that can benefit the mingling (pun intended) of your online social networks  with the rest of your life… Be aware of your Brand, know your audience, and use your online presence to complement, not over compensate your offline social presence. At the end of day, if you build your online brand to complement your already dazzling offline persona, you will be on the way to social networking success both in front of your laptop and out and about!

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The >Play Conference is the annual one-day conference held at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business that explores the most important trends in digital media and makes predictions for the future.  With Wired Editor-in-Chief, Chris Anderson, delivering the keynote address, this year’s event is expected to draw in over 500 industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and students.  And Girls in Tech is giving you the chance to be a part of it.

THE CONTEST
We were lucky enough to get some free tickets to give away to our Girls in Tech readers, so we’re putting on a creative little contest.  All you have to do is write us a poem!  Comment on this blogpost with a haiku about digital media, and we’ll pick three winners at random to win a ticket to the >Play Conference. The deadline to comment is 4:00pm PST on Thursday, October 28th, and we’ll notify the winners shortly thereafter.  Remember, by definition, haikus don’t have to rhyme, but they do have strict syllable guidelines; it’s a three-line poem, comprised of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively.  Here’s an example I put together in 5 seconds flat:
Monetization.
That’s digimedia’s game.
The pressure is on!
Isn’t it just beautiful?  Your haiku doesn’t have to be a masterpiece to win; you’ll be entered into the contest just by posting one in your comment.  With that said, there’s only one entry per person, and you’ll have to handle getting to Berkeley, California on your own (sorry, we can’t pay for airfare or BART fare!). But hey, if you win, you’re guaranteed to learn a ton and meet some incredible influencers at the conference.  Good luck!

>PLAY CONFERENCE
Last year, Karin Xie, Jill Promost, and yours truly had a fantastic time at >Play on the expo floor among starter uppers and student organizations.  This year promises to be even more exciting, with an impressive lineup of panels, a new “rocket pitch” showcase, and much more.
Panel topics will range from Privacy and Digital Identity to Venture Capital Voices on Digital Media Investment to The Changing Face of Social Gaming, and so many more.  See all the panels topics here.
The conference will also take a unique approach to including attendees in the conversation through live-polling, Internet-enabled SMART boards, an idea room for collaboration and reflection, and a master “mission control board” displaying it all in real-time.  Fancy, huh?  But what I find to be the most intriguing addition to this year’s conference is >Play Talks, an intense one-hour session in which visionaries from a range of areas will have a few minutes each to make pitchy predictions on digital media, TED-talk style.

When:
Saturday, October 30th, 2010
9:00am-5:30pm // Conference
5:30pm-7:00pm // Cocktail Reception

Full Agenda here.

Where:
Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley
2220 Piedmont Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720-1900

Map.

The >Play Conference is always a jam-packed day, full of fascinating and useful conversations about the industry. So if you’re intrigued and can get yourself to the Bay Area in just a few days, leave your haiku in the comments and hopefully I’ll see you there!

Posted in Events, GIT U, San Francisco | 9 Comments »

NY Times uses it, Techcrunch uses it, Mashable, Flickr and Ebay use it too. So does Katy Perry, Perez Hilton and Martha Stewart. They all use WordPress for their blogs and websites. Girls in Tech does too and probably many of you as well.

WordPress is today the worlds most used content management system. WordPress 3.0 has been downloaded 12.5 million times and the the hosted WordPress.com has almost 14 million bloggers! For your WordPress site you can choose among 1,200 themes and plug in more than 11,000 different plugins.

With so many users we thought it only right to pay some attention to WordPress by creating an event around the CMS giant. On November 3rd we invite Ann Oyama, web developer and WP consultant  (and electrical engineer!), to talk to us about developing for the WordPress community. We will also get techie and dive head first into a demonstration on how to create custom WordPress websites and how to use custom taxonomies and post types. For newbies to WordPress, like myself, a taxonomy is a way of classifying data, making it easier to organize your content. Post types is another way of managing content in an organized way.

Join us for this event if you are a blogger, developer or interested in learning more about WordPress. This will be a developer-focused event, but will serve as a good, fast, introductory for you who want to learn more about the technical details  behind your blog or site.

Feel free to also send us any WordPress related questions that you would like Ann Oyama to address: info@girlsintech.net, Facebook,  Twitter @GITSF.

Hope to see you at KickLabs November 3rd! Get your tickets here: http://wp2nite.eventbrite.com/

Tags: Ann Oyama, KickLabs, San Francisco, wordpress
Posted in Girls In Tech, San Francisco | No Comments »

In a world where everything is far too easily accessible on the internet, do we find more value in something when we have to pay for it? Try this out for size, try Googling an obscure movie. Just humor me and do it. The other night, I was oddly in desperate need to watch the movie The Wackness…judge away. I didn’t have the patience to wait for it to come to me via Netflix, so, I did what any tech savvy 20 something might do. I opted for a more immediate solution. After scouring free Netflix options online (wasn’t on there), checking out Hulu (wasn’t on there), a simple Google search helped me find the movie on YouTube. Easy. I enjoyed my movie, but had to do an errand half way through and forgot to watch the rest. It was free, it was disposable, I could find it again if I really needed to.

I think you can see where I am going with this. If I had ordered my movie from On Demand (not that it was likely on there, sigh) of course I would watch the entire thing. After all, I paid for it!

In an old 2008 NY Times article I dug up comparing Yelp to Zagat, I was able to discern that a reason among many why Yelp has dominated Zagat in popularity is because it is well, free. Disclaimer: I work for Yelp. Anyone can use it and you don’t even need to create a profile to read reviews. The line between private and public information has completely evolved and its interaction with capitalism and society just isn’t what it used to be. But here is where I get confused. If free information can hit more people, does it have more influence or is it devalued as it becomes commodized? If everyone has an opinion, who can I trust? Why do I care?

I started reading a new book about social media and social change, The Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith. In a chapter about “how to stick out in an overcrowded, overmessaged, noisy world” the authors share that:

The amount of information generated each year– both offline and online–is growing at a rate of 65% according to a 2009 study by IDC. Survey respondents report that they already spend more than 26% of their time dealing with the consequences of information overload.

Woah.

So not to get all Rupert Murdoch on you, but I wonder if paywalls offer a different kind of premium information, so when people will pay for articles and opinions (COUGH The Wall Street Journal COUGH) does that make it more valuable? I’m not sure, but this type of service caters to an elite user base, informed, educated and with a disposable income. So, are these opinions more important or just a lot of pretentious capitalists?

Dave Morin of Path.com thinks doesn’t think so:

Information by definition is scarce. Because of the mostly open (and by open I mean open in the public sense) nature of most of the most popular networks on the web (Google, Facebook, Twitter), when you publish information onto today\’s web it faces an immediately diminishing marginal utility curve.”

Dave Morin also has his own personal blog, mind you. But with that said, you have to pay $3.99 a month for his email newsletter, The Dispatch. Talk about exclusive information!

I truly respect Morin as entrepreneur and like myself, a lover of design. So, I caved. I subscribed to The Dispatch because I wanted to commit to reading more about his ideas and guess what? I’m not going to tell you what he writes about because I am in an exclusive community of committed followers and damn, it feels great.

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On Tuesday, the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women, Verité, along with Calvert Investments, announced the launch of the new Gender Equality Principles (GEP) Initiative at the Merchants Exchange Building in San Francisco. And, it’s about time, right?

Also on Tuesday, the Friends of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, a non-profit group that has worked for thirty-five years to raise awareness and also funding for the Commission hosted an awards luncheon for the eight recipients of the 2010 CEDAW Women’s Human Rights Awards. Those honorees include: Barbara J. Krumsiek, Calvert President & CEO and Cecily Joseph, Director of Corporate Responsibility, Symantec.

At the luncheon, a new website tool was unveiled – (you can see it at: http://www.genderprinciples.org) – that offers practical standards to which companies can aspire and measure against in assessing their progress on seven fundamental gender equality issues. Among the seven issues are: work life balance, management and governance, supply chain, and marketing practices.

The leadership, expertise and knowledge that went into the collaboration between the GED and Calvert were being realized and publicly shared on Tuesday, with a goal to help companies improve gender equality from the factory floor to the boardroom and everywhere in between. This is, as we all now, far overdue. I think people have taken for granted, of late, that there actually is some equality. And, thus, the inequality has been overlooked for much too long. So, we are very thankful for this partnership!

As stated by Dr. Emily Murase, executive director of the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women: “We are proud of this partnership to develop the GEP Initiative. The tool was created with input from leading Bay Area companies who see a strong business case in recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce. As the only city in the world to have adopted the UN Women’s Treaty (CEDAW) as a local ordinance, San Francisco has always been at the forefront of women’s rights. This globally recognized Initiative furthers our innovative work.”

Calvert President & CEO Barbara J. Krumsiek said: “Calvert is honored to be here today as a collaborator on the Gender Equality Principles and on the new website tool as they both embody the tenets of the Calvert Women’s Principles, the first global code of corporate conduct focused exclusively on empowering, advancing and investing in women worldwide, and the most progressive contemporary policies and best practices in gender equality. San Francisco residents should be proud to live in a city that exercises such leadership on gender equality.”

I, for one, am looking forward to what more will come out of this fabulous, very productive and inspirational partnership!

(images & quotes courtesy of www.genderprinciples.org)

Tags: Barbara J. Krumsiek, Calvert, Cecily Joseph, Christine Oneto, Equality, gender, San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, Women's Human Rights Award, Women's ORganizations
Posted in All Chapters, San Francisco | No Comments »

With 2010 drawing to a close, Girls in Tech LA is proud to be hosting a diverse range of tech industry experts who will be sharing their predictions, plans and perspectives about what’s next for tech in 2011.

The 7pm panel discussion will be held at the Border Stylo offices in Hollywood on November 17, and will be followed by light refreshments and networking. It will also be streamed on Ustream, and details of that stream will be available via the Girls in Tech Twitter and Facebook pages before the event. Panelists participating in the discussion include Amanda Coolong (TechZulu), Heather Meeker (Whrrl), Tony Adam (MySpace), Erin Kotecki Vest (BlogHer), Laura Weidman (Border Stylo) and Lynn Langit (Microsoft).  Tickets are just $10, and space is very limited, so buy yours early to guarantee admission.

Tags: event, networking, panel, technology
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Room to Read’s San Francisco Bay Area Chapter Fall 10th Anniversary Gala Fundraiser on Thursday, October 28, 2010 at the SF Presidio Golden Gate Club.  Come celebrate their 10 years of providing children across Asia and Africa with access to a quality education that enables them to reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world.  They will be celebrating several “10′s” -

About Room to Read:
Room to Read is an award-winning international nonprofit focused on literacy and gender equality in education, and recently celebrated its 10 year anniversary with the opening of its 10,000th library –  in Nepal.  Working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments across Asia and Africa, Room to Read develops literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children, and supports girls to complete secondary school with the relevant life skills to succeed in school and beyond.
Over the last decade, Room to Read’s work has impacted more than 4 million children.  The Room to Read programs benefit children in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, South Africa, and Zambia.

(images courtesy Room to Read – www.roomtoread.org)

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