Girls In Tech

If you are located in the Bay Area and interested in getting more involved, please join the SF Chapter at 7 pm on January 31st at Sandbox Suites in Southpark (SF) at 404 Bryant Street. We will discuss ways to get involved at all levels of commitment including leadership roles. We have needs in event planning, social media community management, blogging, website and graphic design and partnerships/biz dev. Please RSVP to sanfrancisco [at] girlsintech.net and bring a friend!

The meeting will begin at 7 and last until abut 8 – please feel free to drop by for part if you can’t stay for the whole thing. And if you’re unavailable to attend but would still like to be involved in our chapter, drop us a line at sanfrancisco [at] girlsintech.net.

Special Thanks to Sandbox suites for hosting our meeting!

Posted in Girls In Tech, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Silicon Valley | 3 Comments »

Looking to get more involved in this dynamic organization focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology??

We have openings for bloggers (commitment of 1-3 blog posts a month):

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:  sanfrancisco (at) girlsintech.net. We can work with any schedule– you can commit to just a few hours a month and many duties can be done from the comfort of your laptop.

If you have any interest in helping out in any other capacities in the SF chapter, send me an email at sanfrancisco (at) girlsintech.net.

Thanks for your interest in our organization- We look forward to hearing from you!

Laura Slezinger – Managing Director of GIT San Francisco, Christine Oneto – Co-editor & Director of Partnerships

Tags: girls in tech volunteer
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Join Girls in Tech, San Francisco and Tripping.com for cocktails after Day 2 of TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF 2011!

We’ll be at Mars Bar (7th St and Brannan St), conveniently located just in front of the conference venue, so swing by and meet the Girls in Tech and Tripping communities.

RSVP for entrance:

http://git-tripping-afterparty.eventbrite.com/

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I recently took an informal poll of 77 of my Facebook friends on whether they had a mentor.  All but one of them had or wished they had a mentor in their lives; however, only around 25% of them said they worked closely with someone that knew they were a mentor and actively played that roll.  Most of the rest either had people they considered mentors that did not know it, or merely had people they admired, but did not know personally.  The gender split for every category was just about 50/50, but it made me begin to wonder if I should have asked for more details on those relationships, and see if gender gaps arose there.

I believe it’s not that women need more mentors; it’s that we need to change our relationship with mentors.  Erin Wolf made the distinction, and I think it is very valid, that “Women get Mentored.  Men Get Sponsored.”  If you want to get ahead in business, you need to find mentors who are far more advanced than you, who can (and will) actively influence things in your favor.

This also reflects the problem with the statistic above: that only 25% of people had active mentors.  If someone has not agreed that they are your mentor, they will not go to bat for you or seek ways to boost you ahead.  It’s great to have a good friend to talk to, but that is not the type of mentor relationship you need to succeed in business.

So founders, take a moment to assess your relationship with your “mentors” and make sure it is not purely admiration or friendship.  Ask if these people could and would introduce you to influential community leaders, hire you at their own firms, or get you invited to exclusive high-level events.  More importantly, if you are mentoring someone and NOT doing those things, realize that you are not truly a mentor and help them find someone who can be.  This mentor relationship is one of the number one factors of whether an individual succeeds or not in life, and is not something to be taken lightly, by mentor or mentee.

For more stories of founder failure and how to get ahead, be sure to check out FailCon, a popular bay area conference taking place October 24th at the Hotel Kabuki.  Girls in Tech readers can receive 15% off with the code “GirlsInTech”

Cass Phillipps is the executive producer of FailCon, and manages numerous other bay area startup events.  She keeps a calendar of upcoming events around the Bay Area at http://webwallflower.com

Posted in Girls In Tech | 2 Comments »

GIT San Francisco is excited to partner with the Online Marketing Summit to bring the Social Media Marketing Summit on August 15-16th to San Francisco!

SMS is the premier social media marketing education event for digital decision makers and social media marketers.

This event will feature intensive workshops, case studies, and all-new material covering the foundational best practices of social media and the more advanced tactics of integrating social into email, search, analytics, demand gen, mobile, and more.

Register with promo code “GIT 15″ to save 15% off admission!

http://a.sw.io/oYWB4A

Attendees will be looking to discover and experience social integrated marketing solutions across the following categories:

• Social & Search
• Onsite Social Analytics
• Off Site Measurement & Monitoring
• User Generated Content
• Email Marketing Social Tools
• Social UX and Conversion
• Blog and Forum Platforms
• Mobile Geo-local Social Apps
• Twitter & Facebook for Demand Gen
• Content Marketing Strategies
• Social CRM Solutions

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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 »

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 »

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 »

On June 20th, Keiretsu Forum successfully launched JumpStartDays with 12 pre-revenue, pre-funded technology companies presenting to a panel of Keiretsu Forum members for feedback, resources and mentoring.

The next event is on Monday, July 18th from 5:30 until 8:30 at Rocket Space in San Francisco.

JumpStartDays will provide free mentoring and resources from angel investors to pre-funded, pre-revenue technology ventures to “jump-start” their businesses.  Each month twelve start-ups will present to a panel of Keiretsu Forum angel investor members and seed stage venture capitalists.  The entrepreneurs will give a 2-minute core presentation, followed by a 4-minute Q&A session, and a 4-minute feedback and resource exchange.

“Providing resources to the entrepreneurial community is as important as providing capital,” said Randy Williams, Founder & CEO of Keiretsu Forum. “We look forward to developing relationships with entrepreneurs at the concept stage and help them take the next step to becoming viable businesses.”

“JumpStartDays will become a very valuable component in the Bay Area entrepreneurial eco-system,” said Max Shapiro, CEO of PeopleConnect. “This will be a great opportunity for Keiretsu Forum members and other angel investors, as well as early stage VCs, to get a look at some exciting pre-revenue startups.”

Partnering with Keiretsu Forum and PeopleConnect is JumpStartDays founding sponsor, LeClairRyan, a national law firm focused on the representation of emerging and growth companies in connection with seed and venture finance, intellectual property protection, mergers and acquisitions, and public offerings.  “We are thrilled to be a part of JumpStartDays,” said Eric Ferraro, a shareholder in the firm’s San Francisco office and leader of the Bay Area venture capital practice.  “These events will be extremely valuable to the presenting companies and the investors in attendance.”

JumpStartDays will be held on the 3rd Monday of each month from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at RocketSpace located at 181 Fremont Street in San Francisco, California.  Seed stage pre-funded, pre-revenue technology startup entrepreneurs who would like to present for mentoring and resources at JumpStartDays, contact Max Shapiro, CEO, PeopleConnect, at jumpstartdays@keiretsuforum.com. Registration is free for presenters.

If you are an investor who would like to attend JumpStartDays, online registration is available at http://jumpstartdays.eventbrite.com/.  Registration is free for Keiretsu Forum angel members and $75 for accredited investor guests.

About Keiretsu Forum:
Keiretsu Forum is the largest global private equity angel investment network with over 850 members in 21 chapters on 3 continents.  The four fundamental pillars of Keiretsu Forum are: investing, resources, education, and charitable giving.  www.keiretsuforum.com

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Facebook recently announced a scholarship opportunity related to the  Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. We’re awarding 20 scholarships for female students excelling in computer science. Below are the additional benefits of receiving the Facebook Grace Hopper Scholarship.

Scholarship Details:

• Grace Hopper Conference Registration
• Airfare to Portland, Oregon
• Up to 4 nights accommodation during the conference
• $200 food stipend
• An invitation to a private reception with Sheryl Sandberg and other Facebook employees during the Grace Hopper Conference
• An all-expenses-paid visit to Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California

The deadline is Friday July 1, 2011. See below for more details.

Blog Announcement: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150197419588920

Application: https://www.facebook.com/careers/grace_hopper_scholarship

Posted in All Chapters, GIT U | 1 Comment »