Girls In Tech

Girls in Tech - along with many other notable entrepreneurship-focused organizations – is partnering with Startup America as part of the Startup Master Challenge…and we need your help!

What do we need? You, The American Startup.  One that wouldn’t mind access to excellent resources, connecting with other entrepreneurs, and gaining exposure for your company through the Startup America Partnership Program.

What’s that? It’s based on one simple premise: young companies that grow create jobs. Period.  The Partnership has three main goals:

• To provide valuable resources and connections to help young companies grow.
• Support regional startup ecosystems throughout the country.
• Recognize startups as the drivers of the US economy.

• Expertise: Training, mentors, advisors, and accelerators.
• Services: Access to services critical to the health of your startup at reduced costs.
• Talent: Recruiting, training and retaining the people that can help you grow.
• Customers: Help with acquiring new customers and expanding into new markets.
• Capital: Connections to sources of capital available to startups in various regions and sectors.

So go sign up (and help Girls in Tech represent!)

Tags: entrepreneurship, Master Challenge, Startup America, Startup America Partnerships
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A recent article from Inc noted that women in technology still face an uphill battle. Quite true!

According to the article, “Women make up half of the U.S. workforce but represent only 25 percent of the technology industry. Despite growth in entrepreneurship, women lead only eight percent of technology start-ups.”

Is this a problem of widespread gender stereotypes? Lack of aspiration to the technology sector by young girls? We need to balance the energy of building awareness with keeping more women in tech arenas. 75% of women in technology report “loving their work,” yet women leave technology careers at a staggering rate.

Finding support and guidance is quite a challenging task. Being in this field for some time, I’ve seen many inspired young women/girls have a hard time finding established women and entrepreneurs in tech to help them maneuver within the industry or corporations. We need more families and friends who can embrace and mentor them within the field.

How do we address this issue? My take is that it starts by exposing, educating and engaging girls from an early young age. Many parents continue to say , “Hey, I would love to have my kids become lawyers or doctors” but you hardly ever hear parents encourage their young girls to become a scientist, or explore technical or mathematicians occupations. Especially at a young age, girls are exposed to more traditional games and toys, but why can’t girls play with Legos? Or create a robotic science project at school?

We invite you to make a difference. We have launched the Girls in Tech Mentorship program in summer 2011. There are huge opportunities to build up the next generation of young girls in technology and entrepreneurship. Our goal is not only to inspire, share knowledge and help young girls to take notice of how cool technology can be, but to expose and educate their parents by encouraging their girls to take part in science, math and tech fairs.  We are looking for mentors, mentees, sponsors, media partners and more. If you are interested in learning more or being part of the program, drop me an email: ivo@girlsintech.net

Follow me @MsSonicFlare

Tags: entrepreneurship, girls in tech, Ivo Lukas, Math, mentorship, mssonicflare, Science, STEM, technology, women in tech
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Portland | No Comments »

Yes, it’s that time of year again — To vote for your favorite panels (& favorite organizations that put them together!  {hint, hint} ) and this coming year’s will be a great one for Girls in Tech.  The topic:  Entrepreneur-ism.  The panelists:   Extraordinary.  We’re very excited about it, as entrepreneurs are some of our favorite people, and a strong core of our membership base here at Girls in Tech.  So, without further ado, we’d like to unveil it here & ask for your support:

Interactive 2012 Panel:  Everybody’s a Bloody Entrepreneur!  Or are they?

There was an article – or 100 – the other day that said something about entrepreneurs being…The life blood of society!  The new drivers of our economy! The largest employers of our citizens!  The solution to our problems!   And what about all the LinkedIn profiles stating “Entrepreneur” as a title?  But are all these “entrepreneurs” really entrepreneurs?  We’ll be hashing through what entrepreneurship really means, what a startup really is, and what innovation really makes a difference on society and the economy, (What is “making a difference” anyway?). Our panel will be a group of diverse “entrepreneurs” – from high-growth speedups, as described by Startup America, to social entrepreneurs who might not provide huge financial returns but contribute in other ways.  And we’ll be talking about the similarities and differences between everyone’s idea of their own Entrepreneurship. It’s a frank discussion on some of the realities and frustrations surrounding this debate.

The panel will address the following questions:

• What does being an entrepreneur really mean? What are some key characteristics of an entrepreneur?
• When does your start-up actually start making a significant impact? And what does impact mean?
• What are the some ways you get from being an “Entrepreneur” to being an Entrepreneur?
• How do entrepreneurs empower organic entrepreneurship values throughout their organizations?
• How do entrepreneurs themselves go through the process of defining their success?

Our Esteemed Panelists

1. Adriana Gascoigne ‐ Girls in Tech
2. Terry Chase Hazell ‐ RampCorp
3. Alexis Maybank ‐ Gilt Groupe
4. Nancy Spears ‐ genConnect

So please, as they say:  Vote early, and vote often! …Or pass it on, anyway.  Let all your friends and contacts know about this enlightening, enriching panel by these fine women in tech!   Vote here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/11363

Thanks to each one of you, in advance,  for all your support!  See all ya’ll in Austin!

Tags: Adriana Gascoigne, Alexis Maybank, entrepreneurism, entrepreneurship, genconnect, Gilt Group, Kate Brodock, Nancy Spears, RampCorp, sxsw, Terry Chase Hazell, Women Entrepreneurs
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Girls in Tech is proud to be part of the Women@TheFrontier  2nd annual conference tonight: Tuesday August 16, 2011 6-10pm at The Tech Museum of Innovation San Jose, CA. This event is open to public. RSVP here

Women@TheFrontier launched in summer 2009- to inspire, to empower and to link female change-agents currently impacting the world through innovation, entrepreneurship, humanitarianism, policy, science and technology.

At its core, W@F celebrates the accomplishments of leading women that are creating positive and innovative change, global in reach and exponential in impact.

W@F also recognizes top organizations empowering and actively changing the lives of women and girls around the world.

 W@F is also collaborating with Women Go Global

follow me @MsSonicFlare

Tags: entrepreneurship, innovation, Ivo Lukas, Science, tech, Women at the Frontier, women go global, women in tech, women's conference
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Events, Girls In Tech, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, santa cruz, Silicon Valley | No Comments »

How powerful is a tweet?

Last December at Vator Splash NY Competition where JumpThru founder Deborah Jackson served as a judge for the event, she met the executive director of Iridescent, a non-profit that provides STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education for underserved and underrepresented youth. On the spot, she helped Iridescent connect with like-minded organizations such as Girl Develop It and Women 2.0. She also introduced the non-profit to Heart & Soul Charitable Fund that is now going to fund Iridescent.

Deborah thought she had done her part in making connections for Iridescent. Little did she think that one of her tweets would have an impact as powerful as a personal introduction.

Fast forward to this week, when she received a thank you email from the executive director of Iridescent. The executive director wrote that, thanks to Deborah’s tweet about Girl Approved founder Heidi Dangelmaier, Iridescent learned about Girl Approved, an organization focused on girl empowerment through innovative product development. In fact, the executive director reached out to Heidi who agreed to be one of the keynote speakers at Technovation Challenge Pitch Night on May 9th at AOL Ventures in NYC.

Here is more detail on Technovation Challenge Pitch Night:

“The Technovation Challenge program was founded in 2009 by Anuranjita Tewary, who wanted to offer young women the experience of participating in a “start-up company” and understand what it takes to be a high-tech entrepreneur. The pilot program was run in the spring of 2010, with 45 girls and 25 mentors from all over Silicon Valley. The Technovation Challenge has now expanded to New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mountain View and Berkeley, CA, supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). View our current programs here“

Girls in Tech was highly involved with the first Technovation Challenge, from inception to Pitch Night, in the Bay Area in December 2009.

So, a tweet, as Deborah found out, can be quite powerful. Particularly when sharing connections and promoting collaboration among an increasingly interconnected community of “tweeps” passionate about female entrepreneurship, technology, and education.

Keep on tweeting!

This post of was originally posted on JumpThru’s tumblr blog.

Tags: entrepreneurship, Girl_Approved, Girl_Develop_It, iridescent, JumpThru, networking, New York City, social media, social networking, Technovation_Challenge, tweet, twitter, women in technology
Posted in All Chapters, Girls In Tech, New York | No Comments »

The fifty-fifth session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 22 February to 4 March 2011. Representatives from Member States, UN entities, and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from all regions of the world will attend the session. There will be a number of activities, including interactive dialogues and panels, during the two-week session. I’m in particular excited about the track panel discussion on Wednesday 23^rd- it is one of the topic that is dearly to my heart. A group of leaders from all over the world will be in discussion over access and participation of women and girls to education, training, science and technology, including for the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work. Be sure to watch the live webcast this Wednesday, 23 February 2011, 10am-1pm; Or if you are nearby pls stop by the conference room #3, North Lawn building.

This year following highlights key focus areas of CSW 2011.

• Priority Theme: Access and participation of women and girls to education, training, science and technology, including for the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work
• Review Theme: The elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child
• Emerging Issue: Gender equality and sustainable development

Panel 1 Track- Key policy initiatives and capacity-building on gender mainstreaming: focus on science and technology

Moderator: Ms. María Luz Melon, Vice-Chair of the Commission (Argentina)

Panelist:

Ms. Sesae Mpuchane, Professor, University of Botswana, Botswana(paper)

Ms. Hagit Messer, President, Open University, Israel(paper)

Ms. Londa Schiebinger, Professor, Stanford University, USA

Mr. Bunker Roy, Founder and Director, Barefoot College, India(paper)

Ms. Anne Miroux, Director, Technology and Trade Logistics Division, UNCTA(paper)

If you are interested in watching day 1 high level round table web live cast, watch now!

Tags: 24notion, CSW, economy, education, entrepreneurship, gender equality, Gender Initiative, Girls, girls in tech, ivo, Ivo Lukas, jobs, justice, Leadership, NGO, Science, technology, training, UN, united nations, UNwomen, Women in Education
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Girls In Tech | 1 Comment »

The Founder Institute (www.founderinstitute.com), a pre-seed incubator, recently unveiled a program designed to increase the number of females founders in technology. Their goal? To launch 175 female-led tech companies in 2011.

The Female Founder Fellowship program will provide extraordinary female applicants the opportunity to launch their dream company with the Founder Institute – free of charge. The Institute will subsidize the course fee for the most extraordinary female applicant in each of it’s ten Spring Semesters; including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., San Diego, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, New York City, Boston, and Singapore.

Best part of all:  Any female who applies to any of these Spring Semesters is automatically eligible. Many of the deadlines are approaching, so apply today at http://founderinstitute.com/join.

To date, 16% of the Founder Institute’s 250+ graduated technology companies have been founded by females – which sadly is quite higher than the industry average. More importantly – the Institute’s acceptance rate amongst female applicants is essentially equal to that of the men, while the graduation rate amongst women is almost 20% greater than that of the men. With this in mind, the Institute hopes to double the number of female applicants with this program – which will in turn push the number of female graduates over 30%, equating to over 175 new female tech founders in 2011.

Some notable female graduates of the Founder Institute include:

1.     2RedBeans (www.2redbeans.com) – Q Zhao (Bay Area)

2.     Ergolution (www.ergolution.net) – Charissa Shaw (Los Angeles)

3.     EximFlow (www.eximflow.com) – Stacey Arbetter  (Boston)

4.     Fashioning Change (www.fashioningchange.com) – Adriana Herrera (San Diego)

5.     Memetales (www.memetales.com) – Maya Bisineer (Seattle)

6.     Micromobs (www.micromobs.com) – Himani Amoli (Bay Area)

7.     MySweetsBox.com (www.mysweetsbox.com) – Regine Harr (Berlin)

8.     Skimble (www.skimble.com ) – Maria Ly (Bay Area)

9.     WhatsFun.com (www.whatsfun.com ) – Katherine Chalmers (Washington DC)

10.  Zebraminds (www.zebraminds.com) – Oza Klanjsek (Denver)

Apply today!  *(You know who you are!)

Tags: entrepreneurship, female founders, Founder Institute, The Funded
Posted in Berlin, Boston, DC, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Diego, San Francisco | 2 Comments »

Launching over the last few days in New York City, General Assembly (GA) is a new “urban campus” which will offer a place for entrepreneurs and technology leaders alike to congregate and thrive.  With partners such as NYC Economic Development Corporation, IDEO, Rackspace, Silicon Valley Bank, Skype, Wilson Sonsini, and NYHacker, they plan to provide educational opportunities and further this initiative in their downtown Manhattan location.  Located at Broadway & 20th, they will hold seminars, lectures and workshops, in addition to be a space for start-ups to set up shop, (and many already have!)  Those start-ups already taking advantage of the space include Art.sy, Fashim, Food52, JIBE, NewsCrd, Yipit, SeatGeek, and  Nodejitsu.

In their words, they are a  ” campus for entrepreneurs seeking to transform industry and culture through technology and design. We provide programming, space, and support services to foster collaborative practices and learning opportunities.”  An example of what their space can provide:  in a day, you might see classes on emerging APIs, HTML5, a storytelling workshop, and a social gathering of gaming industry leaders.  Think of a cross between co-working spaces like NextSpace, and a TEDx conference, all in one!  If you are a entrepreneur, speaker or otherwise would like to get involved, check out their link: here or email them.

As someone who is one to devour any and all new tech knowledge and a self-professed life-long learner, GA is a place I would definitely head when in the area!  Check them out, if you have a chance.

Tags: art.sy, Christine Oneto, entrepreneurship, Manhattan, Rackspace, Skype, social, start-ups, Wilson sonsini
Posted in All Chapters, New York | No Comments »

Calling all up and coming women entrepreneurs!:  It’s time for women with great ideas to ignite their company’s visibility and growth.

Vator.tv, a leading social network for entrepreneurs and innovators, and of news and information through VatorNews, has partnered with Girls in Tech, a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology.

Together, we are hosting our first-ever Amplify Business Pitch Competition – Awarding women-led start-ups, which will be held on November 18th in San Francisco.  With keynote speaker Esther Dyson, an active angel investor in our community, it will be an educational as well as inspirational event and a setting for like-minded budding business owners to learn from this maverick in the field.  (Read more about Esther and her rise to start-up expertise, here.)

We hope you will join us in making this the must-attend women’s start-up event of the season.  Bring your fresh ideas and entrepreneurial spirit to converge with the best of the best!

WHAT: Amplify Business Pitch Competition

WHEN: November 18, 2010 9AM to 5PM

WHERE: Microsoft Labs, San Francisco, CA

TO REGISTER: http://gitamplify.eventbrite.com/ — We look forward to seeing you there!

Tags: AMPLIFY, Christine Oneto, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Esther Dyson, Vator.tv
Posted in All Chapters, Events, San Francisco | No Comments »

Girls in Tech NYC is pleased to announce:

The GIT NYC Entrepreneurship and Venture Series Kick-Off with ASTIA

Tickets are available at http://gitnycventure.eventbrite.com/
Copy courtesy of Christine Lemke.
Blog post The Gender Issue sourced from http://nothingventuredblog.com/ by Jalak Jobanputra and I wrote a short piece on VC and Social Media.
Fantastic, ever-present vision and leadership provided by Melek Pulatkonak.
Heart and soul provided by all women pioneers listed here.

The road to raising venture capital is never easy. And as a recent New York Times article, Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley highlights, navigating this opaque and clubby world can pose unique challenges for female entrepreneurs, including lack of visible role models.

So please join Girls in Tech NYC and ASTIA for an evening discussion with high caliber female entrepreneurs who have successfully raised venture capital. Hear tips and experiences from a panel of four women who have taken an idea through the fundraising stage and beyond.

Moderator:

Jalak Jobanputra – Senior Vice President and venture investor at the New York City Investment Fund

Panelists:

Heidi Messer – Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of LinkShare, sold for $425MM. Currently Co-founder of World Evolved.

Stephanie Sarka – Co-founder and SVP Product and Marketing and Executive Director of Overture Europe, Overture was acquired by Yahoo for $1.63B. Currently founder of a stealth social semantic startup.

Jenny Fleiss – Co-founder and President of Rent the Runway, recently funded by Bain Capital and Highland Capital.

Jen Bekman – Founder of 20×200, funded by True Ventures and several prominent technology angels including Caterina Fake, Chris Dixon, Zach Klein, James Joaquin and Scott Heiferman.

Details:

Date and Time: Arrival and reception at 6:30pm, program start at 7pm on Thursday, May 27

Cost: $5 per person to benefit the Girls in Tech organization.

Venue: DogPatch Labs, 36 East 12th Street (between Broadway and University)

Partners:

Girls in Tech would like to thank:

Christine Lemke, Entrepreneurship Series Lead, is COO and Co-Founder of Sense Networks. Most recently, at Microsoft, she was the XBOX World Wide Program Manager in charge of development programs encompassing four global regions and twenty markets. Prior to her work at Microsoft, Lemke was the President and co-founder of Channel Velocity and currently serves as an advisor. Prior to that, Lemke was the first employee and Director of Product Management at Returns Online, Inc., a venture-backed reverse-logistics technology firm. In addition, Lemke has held roles at 3i Group, Paris, where she analyzed the Internet, Software, and Advanced Technologies markets, and at SAP AG, Germany, on the Global Execution Acceleration Team. Lemke holds an MBA from HEC Paris and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from the University of Washington.

Jalak Jobanputra, Entrepreneurship Series Lead, is currently Senior Vice President at the New York City Investment Fund (NYCIF) where she oversees technology and digital media venture investments, Jalak spearheaded the formation of NYCSeed in 2008, a seed fund dedicated to funding early stage tech entrepreneurs in NYC, and sits on its Investment Committee. Prior to NYCIF, she was a Principal at New Venture Partners, a $300 million early stage venture fund. From 1999-2003, Jalak was at Intel Capital in Silicon Valley. In 1997, she was on the launch team of online financial research startup Horsesmouth, and began her career in media, telecom and tech investment banking at Lehman and Broadview in NYC and London.

Jalak has invested in North America, India, Europe, Africa, East Asia and Latin America. She is also active in supporting education reform and social entrepreneurship and serves on boards of Achievement First Bushwick Charter School (Brooklyn) and Echoing Green, and has consulted for the Big Picture and Fenway charter schools in New England as well as Jobs for the Future. She spent four months setting up microfinance programs and training women entrepreneurs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania after receiving her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in 1999. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Communications from the Annenberg School and a BSE in Finance from the Wharton School.

Melek Pulatkonak, Entrepreneurship Series Lead, Melek Pulatkonak is the President & COO of Hakia, a semantic search technology company. Since 2004, Melek has been dedicated to semantic search and can’t wait to see how its successful implementation will change our lives. Most recently, she was the Associate Partner of Star Venture Group (SVG), a VC firm with investments in the U.S. and Turkey. Prior to her work at SVG, she was the Advisor to the Chairman of the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Prior to that, she was a Research Associate at the New York Stock Exchange where some of her academic work was published. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a B.Sc. degree from London School of Economics and Political Science. In her play time, Melek co-organizes TEDxEast and TEDxGotham, leads the International Committee at the Columbia Business School Alumni Club and is building the Turkish Women’s International Network.

Tags: ASTIA, Christine Lemke, DogPatch Labs, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, fundraising, gender, Heidi Messer, Jalak Jobanputra, Jen Bekman, Jenny Fleiss, Melek Pulatkonak, New York City Investment Fund, Polaris Ventures, role model, social media, Stephanie Sarka, VC, Venture, venture capital
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