Our friends at Bootup.io and other tech community partners are extending an invite to all Girls in Tech NYC members for their 4th annual holiday party, bringing together all aspects of technology and the business of technology in one event as we take over the entire Suspenders Bar and Restaurant. Come early for free drinks and connect with colleagues from every segment of the NYC tech scene! A collaborative event notice from GIT NYC. ~~~ Palindromic numbers and winter solstice holiday cheer is back on 12/21 for an evening of professional networking with New York’s technical community. As with previous years, we expect hundreds to fill the venue so arrive early to claim your free drink tickets. Our mission is to bring together all aspects of technology and the business of technology in one event. ~~~ All are invited – CTO/CIO, junior admin, engineer, developer, entrepreneur, manager, author, speaker, media, and business professional. http://www.bootup.io/holiday-party Make sure to RSVP right away to secure your entry! Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 at 6:30pm at Suspenders – 111 Broadway, New York, NY 10006 Fulton St stop on the 6 train, Wall street on the red line.

Tags: bootup.io, holiday, holiday cheer, new york technical community holiday party, nyphp, nytchp, professional networking, startup one stop, suspenders, technology, winter solstice
Posted in Events, Girls In Tech, New York | 1 Comment »

If you apply to the Pipeline Fund Fellowship Application, you are asked to:

*Describe a time when you took the safe route

*Describe a time when you took a chance

This is my kind of application!

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS -> Pipeline Fund Fellowship

To complete the Pipeline Fund Fellowship application, go to:http://ow.ly/32A8s

Natalia Oberti Noguera @nakisnakis, known for her active work to empower women – contributing to the social entrepreneurial and venture communities in New York City – stopped by our November 10th E & V series event with Columbia Venture Community, featuring young women who broke in to the industry. Briefly, before we all popped upstairs to the after party, or the NYC perennial next event: Ivo Lukas (Portland MD and GIT Mentorship Director) had tweeted a quick picture of the event team, Peggy Wallace (our moderator, from Golden Seeds) and I marveled together at the fantastic event Jenny Bai and GIT China threw for the Girl 2.0 campaign, and Natalia had enthralled quite a few of the current and future angel investors on the NYC board, on our panel, and in the audience. Thanks for coming out Natalia – your collaborative style and smart, ethical commitment to social entrepreneurship is going to do great things for both young and experienced women in the E & V ecosystem!

Angel investing: nelle botti piccine ci sta il vino buono (in the small barrels you find the good wine).

Pipeline Fund Fellowship trains women philanthropists to become angel investors through education (modules on due diligence, term sheets, valuations, board governance, etc.), mentoring (matching each participant with an experienced angel investor to serve as a role model), and practice (participants apply what they have learned to select women-led for-profit social ventures to invest in).

We will accept ten participants into our first cohort. Each participant commits to invest US$5K for a collective US$50K to be invested in a woman-led for-profit social venture at the end of the training.

Posted in All Chapters, New York | 1 Comment »

Crystal C. Yan (@crystalcy) is a Trilingual Chinese-American 18-years-young Blogger, Graphic Designer, Co-founder of What’s Next and Social Startup Summit Find her: linkedin.com/in/crystaly or email her at http://crystalcyan.com/contact-me.html

Hey world!

It’s time to unveil another one of my crazy wake-up-at-2AM-to-scribble-down ideas (in my defense, my last one was http://hereswhatsnext.com and that’s turning out pretty awesomely!)

Posted in Girls In Tech | 1 Comment »

Jalak Jobanputra Senior Vice President New York City Investment Fund

Jalak Jobanputra is Senior Vice President at the New York City Investment Fund and manages the Fund’s investments in the information technology, media and cleantech sectors. Prior to joining the Fund, Jalak was a Principal at New Venture Partners, a $300M early stage venture fund where she was a director of Procelerate Technologies and Real Time Content. Previously, Ms. Jobanputra worked at Intel Capital where she led and managed strategic investments in software, digital media and services companies. Cont…

My twitter stream and email inbox has been full of links to the NY Times article published yesterday — Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley.

It is great to see that a conversation is finally evolving on the importance of gender diversity in the technology and venture capital sectors. On my trip to Rwanda last year I wrote a blog post on why I thought diversity in general was important.

When I meet with startups one of the first reactions/comments is that they have never met a female VC before. We exist, and I count close friends, and investors that I admire greatly, in the ranks. I have also worked with many male VCs who have funded women led companies and are supportive of women. However, after 11 years as a venture capitalist, I can say this industry is one of the most male dominated that I have encountered (including investment banking — many larger firms have diversity programs, shareholders and boards that provide incentives and oversight on this issue).

Successful companies grow out of an ecosystem and network of support, and that includes mentors, investors and role models. Integration of different viewpoints and backgrounds is not always easy but research validates that there is long term payoff for any short term challenges that may exist:

For those with a bottom-line approach, analysts say it makes a difference when women are in the garages where tech start-ups are founded or the boardrooms where they are funded. Studies have found that teams with both women and men are more profitable and innovative. Mixed-gender teams have produced information technology patents that are cited 26 percent to 42 percent more often than the norm, according to the National Center for Women and Information Technology.

Building out an ecosystem that gives ALL smart, talented entrepreneurs access to funding, and support for their fledgling businesses will benefit everyone in the long term. When I helped launch NYCSeed with Owen Davis a couple of years ago, the goal was to provide this network of support in addition to seed funding. And everyone, including the most successful serial entrepreneurs, can benefit from these networks.

But this access becomes particularly important for first time entrepreneurs, and I am seeing an increasing number of women in this category. These women are thinking just as big as their male counterparts (and sometimes are better at weighing the risks and alternate scenarios!) As technology usage becomes more mainstream and diffuses into more industries and disciplines, more women are becoming creators and users of technology as a default.

That’s why I sat on the board of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs in 1999 in Silicon Valley when I started my venture career, and continue to support women entrepreneurs through Astia, Girls in Tech and a host of other organizations. That’s why I am moderating a panel of incredible women entrepreneurs on the topic of Social Media for Social Change this Monday April 19 at GreenSpaces with Echoing Green and NYWSE. And stay tuned for a panel of tech company founders who have successfully raised venture funding, including Heidi Messer (LinkShare, WorldEvolved) Stephanie Sarka (goto.com, new stealth startup), Jen Bekman (20×200) and Jenny Fleiss (Rent the Runway) on May 27 with GIT and Astia hosted at Polaris Ventures‘ Dogpatch Labs in NYC.

This is not about singling out women just because they are women, but because they are building businesses that are going to make a significant impact on our lives in the future (while generating a nice return for their investors along the way….)

Tags: entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, venture capital, women
Posted in New York | 1 Comment »

Union Square Ventures is hiring – at the least for the next half-hour now. Famous for finger-on-the-pulse technology and internet investments, they are also famous for their winning philosophies, an open and direct rhetoric, and seem to relish in the ability to innovate publicly. In their new positions they do not sway from their course. The General Manager role is a dynamic communicator and integrator, while he/she, will join the analyst role in submitting testaments of web presence and LinkedIn for consideration. Looking up @usv @fredwilson @albertwenger reveals a string of approval on Twitter.

This got me thinking and in between a fantastic call with Katarina Skoberne for our London chapter and an interview for one of the most popular newspapers in China by @acrosstheC featuring a new initiative we are exploring with @crystalcy and of course the GIT China launch (@jennybai) I started to write up this up as an FYI … Later Jalak Jobanputra@jalak, Christine Lemke @clemke and Melek Pulatkonak@theorientalist got in touch and announced the finalization of our first GIT NYC Entrepreneurship series event – and Jalak chronicled her perspective on http://nothingventuredblog.com. We’ll repost it here, as you really can’t beat the intelligence, experience, humor and passion with which she approaches everything.

I thought back to when we rounded the bend to 2010, when there was a feeling of excitement about the new year – throughout Girls in Tech chapters, and I think the rest of the world to some extent. We were collaborating online in new ways and excited about new chapters and events. As the year progressed, the virtual economy announced new functionality across the internet, traditional media and news became easier to access, and innovation-spirited, communication-focused internet products launched and spread quickly locally. Brands and models followed, led, and employed social media, and vice versa.

At AlwaysOn OnMedia 2010, men and women VCs provided thoughtful industry analysis and qualified the social media feedback loop in terms of what it meant for platforms and models. Most if not all of it is chronicled at OnMedia, specifically Pricing Private Companies: What’s the 2010 Strategy? and Social Media’s Next Step: The Savvy E-Commerce Campaign in this context. This was all mirrored as social good campaigns like twestival were reaching a year or more of maturity and more executives focused on social good. Platforms or tools were punctuated with APIs that could be used for similar purposes.

The online ecosystem is itself more eloquent (code is poetry). Through the media, women taste this eloquence: from DARPA (as mentioned in a previous post), from McKinsey, from the Economist, from Forbes Women, and through organizations like GIT, find a chance to celebrate it. As creativity as a pursuit in itself edges its way into the spotlight of our tech-ness, women’s achievements and stories from their ecosystems, declare themselves strongly from abroad and are featured within New York City.

Our leaders – brilliant and online – social and learning – and more numerous than it may appear.

Some resources:
@AstiaNYC
@GoldenSeeds
@IlluminateVC
@Thenextwomen
@theglasshammer
Entrepreneur’s vc100
The most loved vcs by thefunded
Venture capital at alltop.com
Forbes Midas List
Forbes powerful women VCs

Posted in New York | 2 Comments »

This blog on Girls in Tech Community Education and Programming Initiatives, with an eye to a crowd-sourced curricula, was graciously co-authored by Amy Vernon with edits by Theresa Lee.

Fast Facts:

• The above is a snapshot I took of a photo on the wall at IBM HQ, while at a NY PHP meetup in NYC, labeled Women Systems Service Professionals Class, 1935.
• Our friends at the McKinsey Quarterly (Rethinking how companies address social issues) discover: To Improve Business in the Developing World, Educate Women, at Harvard Business Review.
• DARPA announces the lack of women and minorities in technology is a national security issue, Wired Magazine.

Community and Education are One:
We are pleased to announce an initiative to address the pressing need for women’s advancement in technological fields. Using its network of members, partners and relationships, GIT is launching a series of free or affordable programming courses. The courses are crowd-sourced and designed by the programming and technology professional community.

Girls in Tech NYC will celebrate this initiative and pilot this Spring with a conference/party in New York City, when we will kick off a Girls in Tech partnership with DaniWeb.com, the largest C++ community and woman-founded programming forum of countless programming language communities online. And, once again, Bootup will offer its ingenuity and experience to the effort, rallying the user group community in the New York City area. Many more partners to come.

Evolve and Celebrate:

Big thanks go out to Dani Horowitz of DaniWeb.com for her spirit and drive. And thanks, too, to Hans Zaunere of Bootup and NY PHP for his incredible initiative and support, and to Sara Chipps (Girl Developer), our pioneer instructor in the space. They not only have experience teaching courses in the space, but also more importantly have the mindset open to a crowd-sourced curriculum. Joanna Wen and many more are expected to join them soon!

As industries evolve, so too will all technology skill sets, and women have typically lacked educational resources targeted to their mindset. The first and most important barrier for women is having a community to support and respond to their needs and to include them in the curriculum. As noted by education pioneer, actress and Math genius Danica McKellar in her conversations with us and through her best selling books “Math Doesn’t Suck” and “Kiss my Math” this barrier exists at the middle school level. Girls in Tech has striven to highlight initiatives via our national and local events, such as: the GIT mentorship program hosted at Apple HQ (Education) and Microsoft, GIT University and continues to innovate in the space through many digital avenues.

More Community:

In addition to offering a stepped process to creating a practical educational curriculum (informal Question and Answer sessions, constant feedback via surveys, engaged teachers, inspiring guest speaker input, and some of the most tested curricula from our corporate and community partners), Girls in Tech would like move the bar for all people who would like to be involved with technology. Tech should be accessible! We have discussed teaming up with other co-ed technology events groups committed to addressing this need in a social way, with a positive and inclusive mindset.

Hallmarks of these classes include offering students consistent feedback, curriculum developed by leaders in the programming community and guest speakers who are programmers and authors, as well as featuring real-world projects designed to reflect women’s strengths, vision, and both our enterprising and philanthropic nature, while focusing on getting them online and programming their own blogs and websites. More advanced courses also will be available, for those who know the basics but need to take their skills to the next level.

Technology and Education Overview:

Over the past many months, Girls in Tech has fielded interest from some of the largest tech companies about their participation in the program and curriculum. Companies such as Microsoft have extremely advanced learning communities, and Google (Education)and IBM (Academic Initiative) foster innovative and crowd-sourced education. Meanwhile countless others have offered their support and interest. Numerous education experts at  Social Media Week in NYC have further been supportive of our efforts. Special thanks to Asli Bilgin at Microsoft for her inspiring discussions on the way women build (WomenBuild) at our board meetings last year. Thanks to Tony Bacigalupo and Sanford Dickert at New Work City for offering your encouragement and partnership. Meeting with FogCreek Software was particularly productive. New York PHP User Community launches its introductory web seminars this month. Local programming communities,companies and corporate partners have signed on as advisers and partners. More soon.

Girls In Tech believes the biggest barrier to women’s advancement in the technological sphere has been the lack of a network of positive community support, and that’s precisely what GIT has aimed to provide since its inception. The project aligns with our belief in education and how social networks and communities support it, as well as our belief in pulling together the collective wisdom of women already successful in the field.

April Q&A Kick-Offs:

Stay tuned for our Q&A classes at the Downtown Alliance’s Hive at 55 starting this April. Daria Siegel and Brian DiFeo, at the Hive at 55 have graciously offered their space to GIT NYC and Bootup, as well as many other value-focused community groups, to encourage ground-breaking training.

April 02, 2010 Update:

Please visit http://techtoeducate.eventbrite.com or http://girlsintechnyc.com for updates as they occur on the pilot of this program.

Posted in All Chapters, New York | 3 Comments »

By: Kayla Zerby

Years ago, you’d be crazy to think that a no-name blogger could ever rub elbows with the editors of Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar at a runway fashion show.

Today, it’s the norm.

And, as New York Fashion Week descends upon NYC’s Bryant Park next week, the industry’s shift from traditional media to social media will be more apparent than ever.

For an industry so heavily reliant on networking and word-of-mouth buzz, it’s no wonder that so many in the fashion world are turning to social media to build their brands.

Chictopica, for instance — “the most valuable online resource for style inspiration and shopping guidance” — is tackling the social media trends in the fashion world head-on during NYC’s fashion week. From February 13-14, more than 300 bloggers are expected to attend the “Social Influence Summit,” a two-day conference featuring presentations from the CEOs of Polyvore and Modcloth as well as online tastemakers, fashion and retail executives, brands and media.

If you’re not able to make it to the Chictopia event, you can always follow this fantastic list of the “Top 20 Fashion Sources You Should be Following on Twitter” to help you stay in-the-know.

And a testament to just how far the fashion world has delved into social media, check out the first-ever Fashion 2.0 Coalition Awards, sponsored by sample sale site ideeli and blogging network Style Coalition. With seven different categories ranging from Favorite New Social Media Site to Best Twitter Account by a Fashion Designer or Brand awards, this is the first time big-name fashion designers and brands will be recognized for innovatively connecting fans through social media. (Hurry! Voting ends on Feb. 8, 2010 at 11:59 p.m.)

What’s your favorite chic geek fashion site or fashion Twitterer? Post a comment and let us know!

Tags: Blogger, Chictopia, fashion, Fashion Week, New York City, Runway, social media
Posted in New York | No Comments »

Photo by Caroline Taillandier @caro972

Asli Bilgin, a great heart and community leader in New York City (via Microsoft) dined via candlelight in a charming French Restaurant in the heart of Gramercy, Park Avenue, NYC. Alissa Emerson trudged through the snow with a 5 inch by 5 inch Tiffany-blue plastic box neatly packed in her editfashion.com-approved hand bag, joined by Michael, her husband, to sit among friends at the restaurant’s inner balcony.

There, Alissa introduced an interesting gift idea that is simple and elegant – yet can be distilled into binary. Asli was treated to a projected slide show of pictures and a usb drive made of Philips metal embossed by Swarovski crystals so that as she jet-sets to Dubai to educate global leaders on new Microsoft technology – her friends go with her – a fun way to bring back old traditions like watching slides with one another. The best wishes for her in her travels.

Speaking of binary, and since Asli also loves math, on vacation, I happened across a superb explanation for binary, by Brian Hayes in his collection Group Theory in the Bedroom. On page 180, he writes:

The most important numerals are all constructed according to a place-value system. In decimal notation, the numeral 19 is shorthand for the expression:

( 1 x 10¹ ) + ( 9 x 10⁰ )

Or, as you might recite in a primary-school classroom, “one ten and nine ones.” Likewise, the binary numeral 10011 is understood to mean:

( 1 x 2⁴ ) + ( 0 x 2³ ) + ( 0 x 2² ) + ( 1 x 2¹ ) + ( 1 x 2⁰ )

which adds up to the same value. The ternary version of the same number is written 201, which expands as follows:

( 2 x 3² ) + ( 0 x 3¹ ) + ( 1 x 3⁰ )

In this case we have two 9s, no 3s, and one 1.

The general formula for a numeral in any place-value notation goes something like this:

d₃ r³ +d₂ r² +d₁ r¹ +d₀ r⁰ …

Here r is the base, or radix, and the coefficients d _i are the digits of the number.

Hint: Brian is a balanced ternary fan, which is very pretty and arguably more efficient than binary, and on which he continues to write on page 189:

the digits of a balanced-ternary numeral are coefficients of powers of 3, but instead of coming from the set {0 1 2}, the digits are -1, 0, and 1 (sic)

The decimal number 19 is written 1101 in balanced ternary, and this numeral is interpreted as follows:

( 1 x 3³ ) – ( 1 x 3² ) + ( 0 x 3¹ ) + ( 1 x 3⁰ )

Tags: Asli Bilgin, Binary, Bits, Brian Hayes, Crystals, holiday, Math, New York City, Philips, Swarovski, Ternary
Posted in Girls In Tech, New York | No Comments »

What do Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk), CNN (@CNNbrk), Causeitsmybirthday.com (@causeitsmybday) and GIT (@GITweet) have in common?

We’re all social, innovative, and reinventing in areas we care about.

• Doug Campbell and Sloane Berrent, of MindShare and The Causemopolitan fame are hosting a 7-city birthday fundraiser.
  **100% of the donations go to Netting Nations, a registered 501c3 organization **
• In April @aplusk made waves and achieved 1 million twitter followers before @CNNbrk and they each contributed 10,000 nets in recognition of World Malaria Day.
• Every day, Girls in Tech communicate how they re-invent, bring together our friends and communities – and empower through our social and professional network strength.

With energy, enthusiasm, and methods worthy of many larger, funded marketing campaigns, Sloane and Doug show that innovative philanthropy is closer to home than you may think. Join the cause from October 3 and 9 in New York, Miami, New Orleans, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles: 102 donors from all 7 cities, about 20 states and 4 countries (New Zealand, Australia and England).

Essential ingredients: a serious cause that effects millions of lives a year (1 million die), a clear and simple solution (Netting Nations employs WHO approved methods for preventing Malaria), a price: $15+, comfort: 100% goes to getting those $5 nets to Ghana, and finally: you – people caring about people and having fun (well Tuxedo Travels fun, which means Sloane and Doug will be dressed fabulously).

Here’s the flightplan and roadmap for the successful party, event, and birthday cause:
Communicate to your friends through tweeting to join @causeitsmybday or http://causeitsmybirthday.com and following #fightmalaria – or join the Facebook group, drag the flyer into an email and send it out to your friends, check out the press releases, blog, and invite friends who have birthdays to celebrate with, to take photos, to volunteer, DJ / breakdance / entertain, contribute auction and door prizes. Appear in the campaign.
Take the lead and connect with Sloane and Doug – or their local partners to offer your resources and best connections for (your) campaign: Cause its my Birthday! Thanks Sloane and Doug for leading the way.

Engage your network and empower them through connecting.

(Select your city to donate and/or buy a ticket!)

1. LOS ANGELES Friday, October 9th - $1850
2. NEW ORLEANS Monday, October 5th - $825
3. SAN FRANCISCO Thursday, October 8th - $600
4. NEW YORK Saturday, October 3rd - $525
5. SEATTLE Wednesday, October 7th - $260
6. CHICAGO Tuesday, October 6th - $140
7. MIAMI Sunday, October 4th - $40

****

In nyc, after a day watching entrepreneurs and investors at the Bootstrapper Summit, being inspired by friends Devin Balkin and Robert Tolmach pitch their charities, speaking to brilliant New Yorkers about Social Good – including Bonnie Halper a GITnyc organizer – it has been amazing to follow with the innovative causeitsmybirthday. We are privileged, among many others, to have enjoyed the many philanthropic efforts of our friends: Mashable’s #socialgood Conference during the Summer of Social Good, Black Card Circle Foundation, Microsoft’s iGive, and Books and Beyond. Thank you Lynn Langit and Asli Bilgin for the introductions. We’re also thankful for NextWeb who, not least of all, promotes great parties.

****

Posted in Girls In Tech | No Comments »

With the success of our summer volunteer and marketing drive, Girls in Tech nyc has begun to plan for fall. We’re kicking it off with a fabulous new media event that our current Marketing Manager, Alexis Stack designed from her passions and the goals we’ve established to help empower women in nyc. New York City, where I’ve called home for my entire life, is above all a fun and cutting edge city. A media and business-focused city: the many talented women and industry supporters here will surely appreciate the efforts of the Girls in Tech board and volunteers.

From my perspective, this fall will mean a confluence of energies for Girls in Tech nyc. I hear many ask, “When is the next social mixer?” – we’ll have more of these. Speakers like Juliette Powell, Rachel Sklar, Peg Samuel, and Dina Kaplan don’t disappoint and never fail to engage. Speaking of engagement Rebecca Goldstein, of Tonic.com (dedicated to good on the web) has engaged our community with a new Ning site, about to debut as Girls in Tech NYC’s destination site. As we ramp up for the fall, expect to hear about some very exciting and dynamic community-focused initiatives that offer compelling content with a social focus.

The fall schedule leaves me wondering: how do so many talented women in NYC manage their time and focus on what is truly important? From a business standpoint, we hear things like social entrepreneurism, social good, triple bottom-lines, flexible work hours, parental leaves, and diversity awareness programs. With the changes in our economic orientation and framework these past months, new models and lifestyles emerge and make their way into the mainstream. New York is an innovative and independent spirit, but we can take our inspiration from all over the globe. Who is asking this question about how we can, practically and efficiently, use our time for social good? In the past month, I’ve come across many people attempting to help to answer it. Here are a few:

• @Mashable Get tickets in the next 15 hours at: Final Days of Summer of Social Good, Last Chance for Tickets by @adamhirsch. It includes, among many well-known leaders, Beth Kanter, and coming from those who challenged themselves to raise $100,000 in 1 week via social media, it makes history – also watch Mashable’s livestream feed this Friday at 9AM.
• @GaryVee Listen to Gary Vaynerchuk inspire at: WHO WHAT HOW MUCH It’s not what you know it’s not who you know, it’s how much time do you spend with who you know. as he gears up to promote his book, CRUSH IT! (about your passion).
• @lotay Read about conscious capitalists from an inspirational individual: Black Card Circle and Lotay Yang: Philanthropy Funded by a Sustainable Spirit
• Read Paul Graham illuminate our time crunch: Maker’s schedule, Manager’s schedule
• Be socially-focused and innovative: the extraordinaries, grassroots.org, acumen fund or even entrepreneurial…
• Share what you know (check out the writing section of Danica McKellar’s and the about description on helping girls to be confident in maths), look at things in a new way, and educate those around you with what you find.

Tags: Social Good
Posted in New York | No Comments »