Girls In Tech

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 »

To date, the Founder Institute has launched over 190 technology companies in 10 cities worldwide – many of which have been founded by women, such as Skimble, Memetales, WhatsFun, and many more. Is yours next?  Applications are closing soon for Winter Semesters in Silicon Valley, Houston, Seattle and Boston.

This 4-month startup accelerator program provides structured training to launch an enduring technology company, in a teamwork-oriented environment where everyone participates in a shared equity pool. In addition, sessions take place once a week at night, so you are not required to quit your day job.

Their great Winter 2010 Mentors include:

- Aaron Patzer, Founder & CEO of Mint.com;

- Heather Harde, CEO of TechCrunch

- Gina Bianchini, Co-founder, Ning

- Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin;

- Jason Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo;

- Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote;

- Phillip Kaplan, Co-Founder of Blippy;

- Jeffrey Dachis, Co-Founder of Razorfish;

- Adeo Ressi, Founder of the Founder Institute;

- and many more.

Anyone starting a technology company or thinking to become an entrepreneur should apply. It only takes a few minutes, and you don’t even need an idea – just a passion to create a great technology company.- Apply to Silicon Valley by Nov. 7th

- Apply to Houston by Nov. 7th

- Apply to Seattle by Nov. 21st

- Apply to Boston by Jan. 16th

For more information, click here.

Tags: Founder Institute, start-up, technology, The Funded
Posted in Boston, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle, Silicon Valley | No Comments »

Final applications for the The Founder Institute‘s Spring 2010 LA, Denver/ Boulder, Paris and Singapore/ Asia Pacific semesters are due this Sunday, Feb 28th.

Tags: entrepreneur, Founder Institute, girls in tech, Partnership, The Funded, Training Program
Posted in All Chapters | No Comments »