Girls In Tech

We’re excited to feature Go Tribal Beta, a site that helps you see “who’s down” to go out. The free web-based service is immediately available to the first 10,000 registrants. To start using Go Tribal, visit http://gotribal.com

Go Tribal helps members coordinate with friends by identifying who is willing, able and interested to hang out. It eliminates the time and frustration spent on gathering a group of friends by allowing members to easily see when their friends are available – whether it is your best girlfriend, or even an old college roommate. As a Go Tribal member you can broadcast when you are down, easily see who else is free and use the simple collaboration tool to finally decide what to do or where to go. From this, Go Tribal is able to grant members broad visibility into what their larger network is planning on doing.

“We feel that technology is moving further and further away from facilitating meaningful physical interaction. Our driving vision is to create simple technology that enables friends to get together in the real world. Go Tribal is the first step in fulfilling that larger vision,” said Shruti Challa, CEO and founder of Go Tribal.

You better believe that Girls in Tech will be using Go Tribal for corporate gatherings, meetings and all-hands calls.  Great job ladies!

Vator invites you to pitch Silicon Valley at Vator Splash May
When: May 13, 2010
Time: 4:30 pm to 12 midnight
Where: Cafe du Nord, San Francisco
Cost: $150 (Girls in Tech get a 20% discount using “Vatorgirls”)

Vator Splash II will be held on the evening of May 13, 2010 at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco and will showcase 10 up-and-coming startups across the high-tech industry, as well as Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, serial entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahal (founder of ClickAgents, Blue Lithium and gWallet), Founders Fund VC Dave McClure, August Capital VC Howard Hartenbaum, Mayfield VC Raj Kappor and many more. Once again, Robert Scoble will be on hand to emcee the presentations. About 400 people, consisting of industry peers, investors and media are expected to attend.

Submit an early-stage company to pitch below:
http://vator.tv/competition/vator-splash

Reserve a discount ticket or pitch table (discount code: Vatorgirls):
http://vatorsplashmay.eventbrite.com/

On Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 7:30pm, CARE will present Half the Sky LIVE in movie theaters nationwide. Inspired by the best-selling book from Pulitzer-prize winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky LIVE will celebrate International Women’s Day with musical performances, celebrity commentary, and the world premiere of Woineshet, a powerful short film directed by Academy Award® Winner Marisa Tomei.

Broadcast to theaters across the country, this one-night-only event is the perfect way to celebrate International Women’s Day together and stand in solidarity with women and girls all over the world. Visit www.halftheskylive.com to watch the film trailer, find your local theater and purchase tickets.

Women in Games International (WIGI), in partnership with Social Gold, today announced that it will host its 3^rd annual mixer at GDC 2010 on Wednesday, March 10 from 6:00pm – 9:00pm. This year’s industry exclusive VIP party will be will be held at one of the most unique venues in San Francisco — the California Historical Society Museum located a few blocks away from Moscone Center. The reception will bring together innovative developers, publishers, and top leaders from the industry along with great food, drinks, and plenty of excitement. 

Women in Games International works to promote leadership, inclusion, and advancement of women in the global games industry, and is centered around the philosophy that diversifying the game development, media, academic and publishing workplace results in not only a more equitable space, but better products.

“For the 3^rd annual GDC event, we’re focused on expanding awareness among growing and emerging markets within the games industry,” said Asra Rasheed of Women in Games International. “We are delighted to have Social Gold as our title sponsor as they represent our initiative to diversify and encourage involvement from other areas of gaming.

Social Gold provides a full-featured virtual economy platform that enables publishers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, provide an unparalleled payments experience to their users, and optimize their virtual economy using robust analytics. The company has an experienced and dedicated team founded by former leaders of Amazon.com, who were responsible for engineering such products as Amazon.com’s Flexible Payments Web Service and Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk. 

“As the industry-leading virtual economy platform for powering virtual currency and payment solutions, we are pleased to be officially co-hosting this year’s GDC VIP reception with Women In Games International,” said Vikas Gupta, founder and CEO of Social Gold. “With the growth of the virtual goods market, we see many opportunities to foster this growth among our industry peers, including events like this reception hosted by WIGI.”

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.

New research shows what many have long suspected:  women entrepreneurs are poised to lead the next wave of growth in global technology ventures.  This report, prepared by Illuminate Ventures, documents the out-performance of women entrepreneurs in the past decade and the trends that are propelling them towards critical mass in the high-tech sector.

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency: The high-tech companies women build are more capital-efficient than the norm. The average venture-backed company run by a woman had annual revenues that were 12 percent higher, using an average of one-third less committed capital.

Big Progress in Recent Times: More women are serving as officers of venture-backed companies with successful exits. In 1988, only 4% of the 134 firms that went public in the U.S. had women in top management positions growing to over 41% percent by 2004. Of 2009’s 19 high-tech IPOs, all but two had at least one woman officer.

Fewer Failures: Despite often being capital-constrained, women-owned businesses are more likely to survive the transition from raw start-up to established company than the average.

Expanded IP Contributions: From 1985 to 2005, the annual number of U.S. female-invented fractional software patents increased 45-fold – three times the average growth rate in that sector.

Growing Influence in Tech: Women-owned or led firms are the fastest growing sector of new venture creation in the U.S., growing at five times the rate of all new firms between 1997 and 2006 – now representing nearly 50% of all privately held businesses.  These companies are being founded in the same business sectors at similar ratios to those led by men.

Venture-level Returns: In the past 10 years more than 125 companies with over 200 women co-founders or officers have achieved IPOs or >$50M M&A exits in the U.S. high-tech sector alone

Diversity Improves Performance: Organizations that are the most inclusive of women in top management achieve 35% higher ROE and 34% better total return to shareholders versus their peers – and research shows gender diversity to be particularly valuable where innovation is key.

Financial Bottleneck: $1M+ woman led companies are twice as likely as those led by men to gain debt versus equity capital.  In 2008 woman co-founded tech businesses gained less than 10% of venture investment in the high-tech sector

Impact of Women Investors: Women now represent just over 15 percent of the angel investors, but just 5%-7% of the partner-level high-tech venture capital investors in the U.S.  Firms with women investment partners are 70 percent more likely to lead an investment in a woman entrepreneur than those with only male partners.

The bottom line: More than ever before, women are influencing the face of business.  They are on the cusp of becoming a leading entrepreneurial force in technology.  As the global economy regenerates, new business models are needed to stimulate economic and job growth. Investors seeking to reinvigorate bottom-line performance and to favorably impact the entrepreneurial strength of our economy would be wise to support strategies that enable high-tech start-ups that are inclusive of women entrepreneurs.

Building on the success of the 2009 International Women’s Day event, A Powerful Noise LIVE, CARE and partner organizations are planning to bring together thousands of people in theaters across the country to celebrate, learn and take action to empower women and girls in the fight against global poverty in 2010.

On Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 7:30pm, CARE will present Half the Sky LIVE in movie theaters nationwide. Inspired by the best-selling book from Pulitzer-prize winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky LIVE will celebrate International Women’s Day with musical performances, celebrity commentary, and the world premiere of Woineshet, a powerful short film directed by Academy Award® Winner Marisa Tomei.

As featured on Oprah, CNN, and Dateline NBC, Half the Sky remains a New York Times bestseller and a critical favorite across the globe. With Half the Sky LIVE, you can watch the pages of Half the Sky come to life onscreen as Woineshet chronicles the struggles of a young Ethiopian woman who ultimately triumphs over sexual violence and discrimination.

Broadcast to theaters across the country, this one-night-only event – featuring the authors of Half the Sky, Dr. Helene Gayle of CARE, Marisa Tomei, Maria Bello, Michael Franti and other celebrity guests, as well as musical performances by India.Arie and Angelique Kidjo – will motivate you to participate in the growing movement to empower women and girls in the fight against global poverty. Half the Sky LIVE is the perfect way for Girls in Tech members and chapters to celebrate International Women’s Day together and stand in solidarity with women and girls all over the world. CARE will provide a discussion guide and other tools to help you make the most of the event.

Visit halftheskylive.com to watch the film trailer and find your local theater. Starting February 5^th, you will be able to purchase tickets (which will range from $10-12) on the site. Also, emailgroups@care.org to let CARE know about your plans to participate and learn about special engagement opportunities for members of our partner organizations!

To view the trailer please click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUq6HsWKETA

Two ways to help Haiti.


We’ve all heard the devastating news — Haiti was struck yesterday by one of its worst natural disasters in the last 200 years.

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake shocked Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas on Tuesday just before 5 p.m., collapsing buildings and cutting water and electricity services. At least 3 million people have been affected.

charity: water is not a disaster relief organization. However, both of our implementing field partners in Haiti have immediately responded to the situation on the ground. We have full confidence in their work. 

Today, we’re asking that you contribute straight to their relief efforts, which include more than just water. A donation to Partners in Health and/or Concern Worldwide will provide emergency medical care, food, shelter, medicine, blankets and clean drinking water to those suffering from the quake’s destruction.

Learn more and contribute to Concern Worldwide here >

Learn more and contribute to Partners in Health here >

As we venture into 2010, I can’t help but get excited about new and innovative internet tools and resources that will launch this year, which will help us become more efficient, effective and productive, both professionally and personally. In 2009, there were certainly a lot of cool tools that served as fantastic resources for my very active lifestyle, and I’m sure that they will continue to be useful in the coming years. Check out my list and please comment on sites and web resources that were useful to you this year!

Be a Better Networker

LinkedIn

Facebook

Squidoo

Ning

Twitter

Organize Your Finances

LearnVest

Mint.com

BillShrink

Find That Perfect Vacation

TripIt

RUBA

Tripwiser

TripCart

TripAdvisor

Kayak

Entertain Yourself

Yelp

Craigslist

DapperUp

Bargain Shop Online

Shopittome

Sale.com

Weardrobe

Chictopia

GiltGroup

Polyvore