Girls In Tech

For 13 years, OSCON, the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, has put open source to work building the future. OSCON’s program encompasses 20 tracks to explore all things open source. New tracks have been added to OSCON this year, including Citizen Science, Geek Lifestyle, Open Data, Programming, and Emerging Languages, while Healthcare returns for its second year.

For those of you who couldn’t make it to Portland. Don’t worry! O’Reilly’s OSCON video live stream starts today and continues all week. also, Check out daily schedule

Don’t forget this Thursday: Girls in Tech will be at OSCON 2011 as we kick off the inaugural GIT Mentorship Pilot Programs globally (everyone is welcome-men and women). Learn more about the mentorship programs(for k-12, colleges/universities, working professionals), get involved and participate,  and how you could help spread the word. If you are attending Oscon 2011,  join us on Thursday on July 28th 1-2pm in room #D134. More info about the session. See you there!

More info at oscon.com/live

Follow me @MsSonicFlare

Tags: 24notion, girls in tech, gitpdx, Ivo Lukas, mentorship programs, oregon, OSCON, oscon data, oscon java, OSCON2011, Portland, women in technology, women leadership
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Girls In Tech, Portland | No Comments »

CrowdFlower the leading provider of crowdsourcing solutions, today announced CrowdConf2011, the world’s largest crowdsourcing conference, will be held from November 1-2, 2011 at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. In its second year, CrowdConf2011 will feature world-class thought leadership, including visionary keynotes, insightful panel discussions and workshops that cover the transformation of human computation through crowdsourcing, and the future of globally-distributed work.

“CrowdConf2011 is an event where the crowdsourcing community can collaborate on the most effective ways to bring the global workforce to businesses for a better, faster and more accurate way to complete time-consuming, but essential, projects.”

“Crowdsourcing is a rapidly evolving market, providing businesses a cost effective way to increase productivity and utilize resources,” said Lukas Biewald, chairman and co-founder of CrowdFlower. “CrowdConf2011 is an event where the crowdsourcing community can collaborate on the most effective ways to bring the global workforce to businesses for a better, faster and more accurate way to complete time-consuming, but essential, projects.”

This year’s conference will bring together more than 600 attendees, including business leaders, industry executives, CEOs, academics and professionals for a unique networking opportunity to discuss innovations in crowdsourcing technology and trends supporting the growth of the industry. Discussions will include the latest research findings and real-world applications of crowdsourcing, from policy and government to the arts, crisis relief, task design and worker incentives.

The conference will begin with workshops led by crowdsourcing luminaries, David Alan Grier, featured columnist at IEEE Computer, Matt Lease, assistant professor at The University of Texas, and Omar Alonso, Technical Lead in the Bing team at Microsoft. The workshops will offer academic and industry followers an introduction to crowdsourcing trends.

The second day of the event will focus on a series of presentations, panels, demonstrations, and keynote addresses from crowdsourcing leaders. Topics will touch upon:

• Human computing
• Distributed labor
• Quality assurance and metrics
• Task design
• Worker motivation and incentives
• Labor and the law
• Computer vision
• Social and economic implications of crowdsourcing
• Work distribution systems
• History of crowdsourcing
• Applications and innovative projects
• Limitations of crowdsourcing

Companies and individuals interested in showcasing new research and findings are encouraged to apply. Visit CrowdConf.com/posters.html for more details.

To purchase tickets to CrowdConf2011, please visit CrowdConf2011.eventbrite.com.

For more information about the conference, please visit www.CrowdConf.com.

About CrowdFlower

CrowdFlower is the leading provider of crowdsourcing solutions, which empower businesses to quickly and accurately complete large-scale tasks that require human intelligence. CrowdFlower’s patent technology provides customers a cost effective way to increase productivity and utilize resources by bringing the global workforce to businesses for faster, better quality results. For more information, visit http://crowdflower.com/.

Posted in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Silicon Valley | No Comments »

Tags: BlogWorld
Posted in All Chapters, Event, Los Angeles | No Comments »

- Shree Bose -

took home the top prizes.

7,000 + teams and individuals competed in the science fair, Google‘s contribution to introducing and highlighting the bright talent in technology up and coming.

Other winners included:  Lauren Hodge, 13-14 year old winner & and Naomi Shah, in the 15-16 year old age category.  Their projects were on:  – the effect of different marinades on the level of potentially harmful carcinogens in grilled chicken, and – how indoor environments that improve indoor air quality can reduce people’s reliance on asthma medications, respectively.  Their projects were picked amongst 15 finalists, who were flown in for the main event at Google HQ from as far as South Africa and Singapore.  To give you an idea of the caliber of projects they were competing against, here were a few of the others:  EEG & Prosthetics, Functional Comparison of Railroad Designs and Derailments, “A Spicy Situation in Alzheimer’s Disease,” and Programming in Pure English. …And that’s just in the 13-14 year old age group.

The students were judged by a panel of luminaries in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, such as:  Marion Nestle of  NYU, Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, Veena Sahajwalla. director for the Centre of Sustainable Materials Research & Technology at University of New South Wales, and Spencer Wells, Geneticist at National Geographic.  What an opportunity for these young ladies, not only to learn as they researched and presented their projects; but also being given the chance to shine and incent them to continue their studies in math and sciences.  We hope to follow the program and see if next year’s winners are as similarly talented and, well I’ll just say it:  Female!  Or, maybe they’ll give the guys a chance next year; we’ll find out then.  Perhaps contests like this is just what the U.S. needs in their struggle to remain (or gain back, depending on which report you’ve read last) in the lead in the STEM fields.  Let the healthy competition begin.

To read more about the fifteen finalists‘ projects or the full list and biographies of  judges, click here.

(photo credit:  Google)



Posted in All Chapters, Girls In Tech | No Comments »

Congratulations to our friends and partners from Tripping, a Social travel site, that has raised $1M in seed funding.

Tripping was founded in 2009 by Jen O’Neal and Nate Weisiger. They won the Girls in Tech Amplify Business Pitch Competition in November 2010 in San Francisco.

When I travel, I like meeting with locals to learn better about their city and culture. Thanks to the Tripping Community, we can connect with people all over the globe to get tips from them, share a cup of coffee and even find a place to stay.

Tripping provides you with some tools to help plan your trip safely. The website also offers you to connect with people who share common interests via their Networks. For example, you can find and join the Girls in Tech Network by clicking here.

You are invited to meet the Tripping team this Thursday, July 14. Tripping and HumaniTravels will organize a Contest Kickoff Celebration from 6pm to 9pm at the Reaction Restaurant, in San Francisco. Please go to their facebook event page for more details.

If you want to get a shirt or win a trip anywhere in the world, you should also try the Tripping contest by visiting their website.

Tags: startup
Posted in Girls In Tech, San Francisco, Silicon Valley | 1 Comment »

The San Francisco Chapter is expanding it’s board and volunteers. If you’re interested in getting more involved with us- either for one of the positions or teams listed below- or just to help out with the occasional event- please send a message to SanFrancisco [at] girlsintech [dot] net

Director of Events-  This director will manage events production, coordinating with the Managing Director, Director of Sponsorship, Director of Marketing/Social Media and whoever is spearheading that event to produce the event. Will coordinate the team of volunteers assigned to organize and promote the event. **Commitment- Roughly 5-8 hours a week for 2-3 weeks leading up to an event, then 0-3 the rest of the time. Skills Required: Experience overseeing teams/projects, attention to detail, availability to be responsive via email on a regular basis (i.e. can’t do this only on your weekend- this requires regular communication to keep the event timeline moving), good communication skills.

Website Team- We would like a team of about 5 ladies to work under the Director of Website Development to build the SF website. Some qualifications are:

WordPress Experience
- PHP
- SQL (e.g. simple database skills, e.g. MySQL)
- CSS
- Any graphic design or UI skills (e.g. Javascript, Photoshop etc)
- Any web development experience

Other skills:
- Google Analytics
-  Facebook API or Facebook Connect
-  Twitter API
-  Linkedin API

-or general IT/CS/Engineering backgrounds

Commitment is 3-5 hours per week commitment while we are building it and will taper off after, though there will be opportunities for administering areas of the site once we have it live.

Calendar Administrator - I can have 2 people do this if necessary. Search all the relevant websites, mailing lists, etc and update the GIT SF Google Calendar to reflect tech events and conferences in SF. Commitment is a few hours per month- whenever you choose, as long as it is done regularly.

Bloggers- We are always in need of bloggers! You can be available to blog on assigned topics and/or blog on topics of your own within the GIT Blog guidelines. All levels of commitment welcome! Bloggers may be located anywhere. Contact us for details.  (editor@girlsintech.net)

Posted in Palo Alto, San Francisco, santa cruz, Silicon Valley | 1 Comment »

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and managing partner of Founders Fund, recently chatted with the editors at CapLinked and had some very insightful words for budding business founders. In the blog excerpt below (passed on, with permission by CapLinked) he discusses why he is giving college students fellowships to leave school (really), what his early opinions of Facebook were (note: he’s an investor), the differences he sees between the Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and why he would not start PayPal today, knowing what he knows now.  It’s a great read for all our start-upreneurs out there.  And, I would encourage you to leave us your comments, below!

PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel on Facebook, Bubbles, and Innovation

(credit: caplinked.com; reposted with permission)

Posted in All Chapters, Girls In Tech | No Comments »

i/o Ventures a San Francisco-based startup incubator, Scripped.com, an online software provider and community of nearly 100,000 screenwriters, and Talenthouse, the leading platform for creative collaboration, today announce “Entertainment and Tech,” a speaker series focusing on the intersection of technology and media.

The speaker series focuses on emerging trends in Hollywood, and how high-profile Hollywood executives perceive emerging technologies in the Silicon Valley. The goal of the speaker series is to provide Silicon Valley new media entrepreneurs with perspective on traditional Hollywood business and its inner workings.

“With the exception of a few high-profile investors such as Ashton Kutcher, you do not see entertainment industry executives and talent visiting Silicon Valley in droves,” says Sunil Rajaraman, CEO and Co-Founder of Scripped.com. “Both Silicon Valley and Hollywood are working on innovative things that will affect the future of the entertainment industry – the speaker series is meant to be an educational tool for tech entrepreneurs.”

Posted in Palo Alto, San Francisco | No Comments »

Register now for OSCON 2011, happening July 25-29, 2011, at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. For 13 years, OSCON, the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, has put open source to work building the future. OSCON’s program encompasses 20 tracks to explore all things open source. New tracks have been added to OSCON this year, including Citizen Science, Geek Lifestyle, Open Data, Programming, and Emerging Languages, while Healthcare returns for its second year.

OSCON Java and OSCON Data – two new distinct events co-located with OSCON, debuting on July 25-27. OSCON Java combines Java and open source to take on the tech world’s juiciest challenges—in cloud computing, big data, mobile, and more. OSCON Java tracks include Client, Cloud, Craftsmanship, JVM, and Trends. At OSCON Data, learn about the open source technologies for gathering, storing, and analyzing data that make it possible to use new data sources and do new things with existing data. OSCON Data tracks include Analytics and Visualization, Hadoop, NoSQL Databases, Real-Time and Streaming, Relational, and Roulette. Don’t miss all the valuable tutorials, keynotes, hundreds of sessions and events. Girls in Tech readers can use discount code os11git to save 15% on your registration.

Girls in Tech will be at OSCON 2011 as they kick off the inaugural GIT Mentorship Pilot Programs globally (everyone is welcome). Learn more about the mentorship programs(for k-12, colleges/universities, working professionals), get involved and participate,  and how you could help spread the word. If you are attending Oscon 2011, don’t forget to join us on Thursday on July 28th 1-2pm in room #D134.  http://www.oscon.com/oscon2011/public/schedule/detail/21239

For more info contact: ivo@girlsintech.net     |    Follow me @MsSonicFlare

Need a press pass to cover GIT mentorship session? contact : ivo@24notion.tv

Tags: 24notion, colleges, girls in tech, gitpdx, global mentorship, Ivo Lukas, ivolukas, k-12, Leadership, Mentorship program, O'Reilly, open source convention, oregon, OSCON, OSCON2011, Portland, STEM, universities, working professionals
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Events, Girls In Tech, GIT Mentorship, GIT U, Portland | No Comments »

Follow me @cmparadise

In my role as a volunteer social media manager for women’s professional organizations in the Bay Area it is my job to stay on top of the news; and the news lately regarding women, executive positions and a challenging job market has become alarming.  From articles in the Wall Street Journal to U.S. News to Bloomberg there are reports that a pervasive wrong is occurring and that is the inspiration for this blog post.

From a timeline perspective this began with an article from the Wall Street Journal ‘Women Executives Twice as Likely to Leave Their Jobs as Men’ in October of 2010.  “About 7.2 percent of women executives in the survey left their jobs, compared to 3.8 percent of men. Both the voluntary rates (4.3 percent versus 2.8 percent for men) and the involuntary rates (2.9 versus 0.9 percent) were higher for women executives.”  The article states that women were more likely to be dismissed from their job and the research suggests that this is due to the lack of opportunities and professional support needed to advance successfully.

This research is supported by the recent article from Women on Business ’29 Fortune 500 companies Have No Women on Boards’ which highlights that only 2.6% of women hold board chairmanships.  That article was actually a reactionary piece written about the Bloomberg Businessweek article ‘Boys Only Boards’.  According to the author Joel Stonington “There are 29 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 that are all male in decision-making roles, with no women on the board of directors or among the top five highest-paid officers, according to Bloomberg Rankings. They range from America’s largest maker of uniforms, Cintas (CTAS), to the company that produces Animal Planet and the Oprah Winfrey Network, Discovery Communications (DISCA).  There are 47 companies, or 9.4 percent of the S&P 500, that have no women on the board of directors, according to Bloomberg Rankings.”  Yes you read that right….29 companies without women in the top five highest-paid officer roles.

If you are wondering how Bloomberg Rankings got from 47 companies to 29….if there was one (1) woman present (let me repeat…one)  in an executive position the company was removed from the rankings.  Not to dismiss the women who hold these positions but this is not even close to gender equality.  Personally, I would like to see a list of companies without 25% of their executive positions held by women. I know I would be adjusting my spending habits accordingly.

It is not only the executive ranks that are facing this challenge.  In the Wall Street Journal article ‘Tech Executives See Paths for Women, Especially Geeks’  the author states that “Women held 25% of computing-related occupations in 2009, down from 30% in 2000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The percentage of computer information systems degrees obtained annually by women has held at 18% since the 2007-08 school year, down from 28% in 2001-02.”.  And even more frightening women are not aiming for the top.  In a McKinsey & Co survey conducted in 2010 16% of women versus 26% of men are aiming for top management positions.

A Poor Way To Do Business

“It’s totally insensitive,” says Terry Savage, a financial journalist and longtime corporate board member. (She requested that Businessweek.com not cite the boards on which she sits, as she did not want to be seen as speaking for those companies.) “I find it simply astounding that a company that has at least half its ultimate users and customers as women, especially uniform making or media, I find it astounding that they don’t have a woman on the board.”  Could it be said any better?  Let’s try….

Marketing statistics about women from she-conomy.com :

• Wealthy boomer women are the marquee players in our country’s culture and commerce. They are educated, have a high income, and make 95 percent of the purchase decisions for their households. – Karen Vogel, The Women’s Congress and co-founder and president of New Generation Event Solutions
• Once the college bills are out of the way and children launch their own households, the discretionary spending power of 50-plus women soars. They spend 2.5 times what the average person spends. Women are the primary buyers for computers, cars, banking, financial services and a lot of other big-ticket categories. – Marti Barletta, Primetime Women
• High-net-worth women account for 39% of the country’s top wealth earners; 2.5 million of them have combined assets of $4.2 trillion. More than 1.3 million women professionals and executives earn in excess of $100,000 annually. 43% of Americans with more than $500,000 in assets are female – MassMutual Financial Group–2007
• The number of wealthy women investors in the U.S. is growing at a faster rate than that of men. In a two-year period, the number of wealthy women in the U.S. grew 68%, while the number of men grew only 36%. – The Spectrem Group
• Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care:
  • 91% of New Homes
  • 66% PCs
  • 92% Vacations
  • 80% Healthcare
  • 65% New Cars
  • 89% Bank Accounts
  • 93% Food
  • 93 % OTC Pharmaceuticals
  • American women spend about $5 trillion annually…
    Over half the U.S. GDP

With statistics like the above….how can companies not seek women in droves for executive positions?

The Growing Talent Pool & What You Can Do

With all of the above it is astonishing the low number of women in executive management.  Even more so when there are numerous ‘women to watch’, ‘women to follow’, and top business women listings.  A few of my favorites:

• Advertising Age – Women to Watch
• FORTUNE – 50 Most Powerful Women in Business

And being that I am from the Bay Area:

• San Francisco Business Times – 150 Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business

Clearly the talent exists and the challenge lies in perceptions as opposed to the reality of the talent pool available.

So what can we do? I believe the responsibility begins with each and every one of us.  One of the factors cited for poor ability to advance into executive management is the lack of opportunities and support systems.  Women should not rely on their companies to provide this type of support but instead look to external organizations and networks to create this.  Organizations like Girls-in-Tech, along with many more around the country are there to assist and provide these opportunities.

Steps to Take:

1. Investigate opportunities for professional growth, mentorship, and networking within your company.  If you don’t find any…consider speaking to your HR department about partnering with organizations that provide these opportunities for women.
2. Research organizations within your area that can help you and become an active member.  The least you can do is show up to events….the most you can do is volunteer.  These are all great ways to provide youself with new opportunities.
3. Invest in yourself and other women leaders.  Many companies offer yearly benefits to offset the cost of continued education…use them.  Consider mentoring other emerging women leaders within your area.
4. Seek out female talent.  With online networking platforms like LinkedIn and Viadeo this has never been more easy!

Tags: lack of women executives, lack of women on boards, Leadership, women, women executives, women in technology
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Girls In Tech, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Silicon Valley | No Comments »