By Dr. Jane LeClair (Dean, School of Business & Technology, Excelsior College)
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that women are underrepresented in the technology fields.
The numbers are stark: today women earn less than 20% of engineering degrees in the United States. For those women who do enter the tech industries, an incredible 56% leave by mid-career. In fact, I myself left the nuclear field after two-plus decades, for a new career in academia. It is for that very reason that I’ve made the issue of “women in tech” a cornerstone of my time at Excelsior College. My goal is to increase academic retention Read More »
By Carla Rover (Writer, The Advertising Technology Review)
There are two sides to the post-feminist world for women creating startups technology companies.
Here’s the good part: most investors, at least publicly, acknowledge the need for a more diverse field of leadership in the startup community.
Here’s the bad part: women may have to do a little extra homework to get over the industry’s age-old tradition of choosing leaders based on their educational or demographic similarities Read More »
Published on: January 17, 2012 Tags: San Francisco, Splash, Vator
Vator Splash will be held in San Francisco on February 2, 2012 gathering leading entrepreneurs, innovators, venture capitalists and angel investors across technology to inspire and energize the audience about entrepreneurship and innovation – bringing together high-caliber speakers who talk about how to build and scale great successful companies, how their industries are changing and the opportunities those changes are creating.
Women 2.0 members save 15% on tickets with code “Women”. Read More »
Published on: January 17, 2012 Tags: Joanne Wilson, Lynn Perkins, UrbanSitter
By Joanne Wilson (Blogger & Angel Investor, Gotham Gal)
Sometimes you wonder why someone didn’t turn the idea of UrbanSitter into a business a long time ago. Technology has given entrepreneurs a platform to take ideas that might have been around for a while the ability to actually build them. So what is the idea? Creating an army of babysitters for parents through direct connections, references and friends. If you have kids and need to find a babysitter for Saturday night, sign up now.
Lynn grew up in San Diego with two parents that were entrepreneurs. Her father is a real estate developer and her mom is a child psychologist who build a line of stress management Read More »
By Leanne Pittsford (Founder & CEO, StartSomewhere & Board Member, StartOut)
If you’re in the Bay Area, I hope you’ll join me January 24, 2012 at 6pm for a screening of Miss Representation benefiting StartOut’s Lesbian Entrepreneurship Mentoring Program.
Did you know: Women comprise over half the U.S. population, hold 51% of U.S. wealth and have 83% of purchasing power but only comprise 3% of leadership positions in media, 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs and women’s representation in politics is abysmal (we’re 90th in the world). Worldwide, women do 66% of the world’s work and earn only 10% of the world’s income. Read More »
By Jen Consalvo (Co-Founder & COO, Tech Cocktail)
Editor’s mote: This article is courtesy of Tech Cocktail, which offers tech startup events, news and resources across the country. Buyosphere CEO Tara Hunt will be pitching live on February 14, 2012 at Women 2.0 PITCH Conference – get your ticket now!
After launching last year, Buyosphere, a Montreal-based startup, was offering a product that would go head-to-head with Pinterest. You could curate collections of products, find interesting new products through friends, and establish yourself as a tastemaker.
Pinterest has since taken off and Buyosphere Read More »
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
One of the most recognizable women’s names in the Silicon Valley and former TechCrunch writer, Sarah Lacy has raised $2.5M in funding from individuals including Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Tony Hseih (Zappos), Zach Nelson (NetSuite), Andrew Anker, Chris Dixon (FounderCollective), Saul Klein (IndexVentures), Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital), Jeff Jordan (ex-CEO, Open Table) and Matt Cohler (ex-Facebook & Benchmark Capital).
Sarah blogs about why she started PandoDaily here and writes, “There’s a nice side-benefit about starting PandoDaily: I can officially now call bullshit on people (usually men) who insist Read More »
By Harrison Kratz (Community Manager, MBA@UNC)
For decades, Silicon Valley has been synonymous with innovation. It is difficult to dispute this claim given that it’s the home to technology and Internet giants such as Apple, Google, and Facebook. While it hasn’t lost its staying power, other hotspots for entrepreneurship and technology have emerged over the past ten years, in particular, New York’s “Silicon Alley”.
Although cities like Chicago, Austin, and even our own Research Triangle have produced a number of web-based businesses in recent years, New York’s startup scene is growing Read More »
Published on: January 16, 2012 Tags: Black Girls Code, Blake Landau, Codecademy, computer science, Cynthia Lane Schames, Douglas Rushkoff, Female Coder, Heather Payne, Kimberly Bryant, Ladies Learning Code, Program Or Be Programmed, Toronto, Zach Sims
By Blake Landau (Blogger, Artemis)
“We’re hoping to make everyone literate about the basics of programming while creating a generation of new and talented programmers” Zach Sims, co-Founder of Codecademy told me in an email.
Codecademy’s mission is to democratize coding in 2012. The startup has partnered with Girl Develop It, Code Year and was established with TechStars and YCombinator.
Codecademy, only a few months old, has Read More »
Published on: January 16, 2012 Tags: DEMO Asia, Singapore
The inaugural DEMO Asia, the launchpad for emerging technology and trends in Asia Pacific, is scheduled to take place in Singapore February 29 – March 2, 2012. DEMO Asia is the latest addition to the DEMO family of conferences and is expected be an iconic event for emerging technologies and trends in Asia.
At DEMO Asia, a hand-selected group of new products will make its public debut to global press, savvy investors, corporate acquirers, strategic partners and buyers. Read More »
By Shirley Lau (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Minted Magazine)
From building the design of a magazine from scratch to creating and coding a website with absolutely zero knowledge of how to do so, I’ve learned more about magazine publishing through research and networking than I did while actually working at a publication.
In only four months, I, along with the other half at Minted Magazine, Kimberly S. Lin, launched a quarterly digital women’s lifestyle and business publication. My background is in journalism and multimedia production and Kimberly’s is in business, being a hedge-fund-analyst-turned-writer. Read More »
By Anna Curran (Founder, CookbookCreate)
Startup Weekend is hosting the first ever Startup Weekend Mobile in New York City on January 20-22, 2012.
In just 54 hours, we’ll go from pitches on Friday night to demos of mobile businesses on Sunday afternoon. Our mentors and judges have been carefully selected and include leading mobile experts like Naveen Salvadurai (Founder of Foursquare), Jennifer Byrne (VP of Business Development at Amex) and Theo Skye (Co-Founder of Medialets).
In addition to the fun of working with a team Read More »
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
In a much discussed BBC Video about CES 2012, a booth babe tells the reporter “I don’t know any women [interested in tech]. I don’t know any women that would choose the tech world over shopping or cooking or taking care of kids.” Wait, is this really 2012?
Here is the CES Booth Babe Problem as articulated by Violet Blue:
“CES doesn’t look much like a cutting-edge convention now that problems have emerged around the hired female models dressed in provocative outfits to be “booth babes” Read More »
Published on: January 15, 2012 Tags: Location-Aware, O'Reilly, Where Conference
O’Reilly Where (April 2-4, 2012 in San Francisco, CA) is where the grassroots and leading-edge developers building location-aware technology intersect with the businesses and entrepreneurs seeking out location apps, platforms, and hardware to gain a competitive edge. Where Conference presents leading trends rather than chasing them.
Women 2.0 members save 15% with discount code “WHR12WOMEN” when they register here.
Read More »
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
Two pieces of sunny news for women in business and technology:
As co-founder and CEO of VMware, Diane Greene led the company to an IPO the largest the tech industry has seen since Google’s. Recently, she was named to Google’s Board of Directors, bringing the number of women on Google’s board to 3 out of 10 members.
Ann Mather and Shirley M. Tilghman have both been on Google’s Board of Directors since 2005.
Diane Greene was a speaker at last year’s Women 2.0 PITCH event. You can still get tickets for this year’s PITCH Conference. Read More »
By Marie Wilda (Writer, PolicyMic)
The video game industry has an annual revenue of over $25 billion. One largely anticipated game set to be released in 2012 is Grand Theft Auto V, and it assuredly will not disappoint.
One reason game forums await the release of GTA V is to find out if the male protagonist streak will be broken. A recent Internet trailer did nothing to confirm or deny rumors of a female lead character.
The question is no longer if women play video games, rather it has become how to address that niche. Read More »
Published on: January 13, 2012 Tags: Alexa Andrzejewski, Cake Health, Carl Schramm, Decade Of The Woman Entrepreneur, Foodspotting, Forbes, Generation Y, Kauffman Foundation, Lindsey Pollak, Meghan Casserly, Rebecca Woodcock
By Meghan Casserly (Writer, Forbes)
A recent Kauffman poll shows that Gen-Y may be poised to be the most entrepreneurial bunch the world has seen. “54% of the nation’s Millennials either want to start a business or already have started one,” says Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation.
Paired with data on the rise of female entrepreneurs, the outlook for young women is promising. As Lesa Mitchell, Kauffman’s vice president of innovation pointed out “Women’s entrepreneurship is an economic issue, not a gender-equity issue.” Read More »
By Elizabeth Kiehner (Co-Founder & Principal, Thornberg & Forester)
As Thornberg & Forester approaches its five-year anniversary next month, I am reminded of our stellar employee retention rate. With a staff of sixteen at present, we’ve had only one person leave our team these past years when she moved closer to her parents after having her first child.
So, how do we do it? Easy.
#1: First of all, HR is not a department — it is a way of thinking
Almost every employee has his or her own custom Read More »
Published on: January 12, 2012 Tags: 500 Startups, Aileen Lee, Arushi Raghuvanshi, Avishai Shoham, Business Productivity, Buyosphere, Cassandra Girard, Cece Yu, Connie Fan, Cory Jones, Daisy Jing, Dave McClure, DFJ Gotham Ventures, DINKlife, DocPons, Draper Fischer Jurvetson, Evo, Evoz, Hotseat, Jerome Paradis, Joy Marcus, Karen Alonzo, Katelyn Watson, Kevin Stephens, Kismet, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, LeAnne Ozaine-Smith, Maples Investments, Melissa Miranda, Michelle Norgan, Mike Maples, Perfect Beauty, Pitch, Prosperity, Rachel Pike, Ruwan Welaratna, Son Ca Vu, Stuart Thompson, Susan Nicholas, Tara Hunt, Tiny Review, Ulrika Hedlund, Women 2.0 Startup Competition, Yasmin Lukatz
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
The run-up to Women 2.0 PITCH Conference on February 14, 2012 is defined by Women 2.0′s fifth annual Startup Competition for early-stage tech startups.
Watch the finalists of the 2012 Women 2.0 Startup Competition pitch live on February 14. Hear first-hand feedback from panels of real investors on what makes a successful pitch for investment.
Here are the 10 finalists of the 2012 Women 2.0 PITCH Startup Competition: Read More »
By Laura Sydell (Digital Culture Correspondent, National Public Radio)
Bill Reichert, a partner in Garage Technology Ventures, says another reason is that a lot of the female entrepreneurs he sees don’t have the computer science background.
“We tend to invest in companies that have very strong core technical teams, and … that population is disproportionately male,” Reichert says.
But starting an Internet company isn’t as technically difficult as it used to be. Read More »
Published on: January 11, 2012 Tags: Academic Earth, Audible, Book Club, Budget, Business Books, Going Back To School, iTunes U, Jazmin Hupp, John Spencer, Khan Academy, Lifelong Learning, Netflix Documentaries, Read It For Me, Stanford, TED Talks, Tekserve
By Jazmin Hupp (Director of Awesome, Tekserve)
“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer
Read A New Book Every Month
John Spence says that the average business person reads one business book every 5 years. If you read 6 business books a year, you’ll be in the top 1% of learners in America. If you read a business book every month, you’ll be in the top 1% of learners in the world. Read More »
By Mary Simonds (Blogger, Startup America Partnership)
Are you a Startup America Master? Do you have enough startup influence to help us recruit 100,000 startups by March 31, 2012? Prove it.
We ended last week with a bang and kicked off our first Master Challenge Throwdown: Brad Feld v. TechStars!
As of this morning, Brad Feld is in the lead with 55 startups and TechStars with 53 with David Cohen claiming almost half (22) of the TechStars number, and finally getting Read More »
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
The number of women obtaining patents grew at an accelerated rate in the past 35 years — and in numbers considerably higher than previously reported.
Reported by the National Women’s Business Council who commissioned the study, the report demonstrates that the largest spike came in 2010 as 22,984 patents were granted to women (a 35% jump over the previous year). In 2009, women received 17,061 patents (a 4.5% increase over the 16,321 issued in 2008).
Read More »
Women 2.0 interviews Candace Klein, Founder & CEO of Bad Girls Ventures — a non-profit, micro-finance organization focused on educating and financing woman-owned startup companies. To date, Bad Girls Ventures has educated over 250 businesses, financed 26 women with $700k and created 154 jobs across Ohio. Here is her heartfelt story of starting up and empowering women — to solid economic results and job creation!
Women 2.0: How did you get the idea for Bad Girls Ventures? Start at day one, or even before then.
Candace Klein: I was born to a teenage mother on welfare and lived in a trailer park near Cincinnati, Ohio. As the oldest of five children and 35 grandchildren in my family, I was the first to go to college. I secured four degrees from Northern Kentucky University Read More »
Women 2.0 partnered with Blazing Cloud in San Francisco to invite you to learn to program this year! Save 10% with code “women2″:
Read More »
