We live in the world where women entrepreneurs are exposed to many opportunities to create, launch, and develop their businesses. On November 18, 2010 in San Francisco, there will be held the first Amplify Business Pitch Competition to Award women-led start-ups. Vator.tv, a social network for entrepreneurs in a partnership with Girls in Tech, a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of intelligent women in technology, will host the event.
The keynote speaker is Esther Dyson, a journalist, an entrepreneur, an investor, and a philanthropist. She is also an active member of advisory boards for-profit and non-profit organizations. She was named by Forbes magazine as one of the most powerful women in American business.
Esther Dyson was born in Switzerland to a family of a mother mathematician and a father physicist. She always had a passion for technology. Dyson has a degree in economics from Harvard. She started her career as a fact checker, and later a reporter at Forbes magazine. However, she was always seeking challenges and was deeply interested in start-ups. In 1983 she joined Rosen Research and bought the company from her employer Ben Rosen. She renamed it EDventure Holdings. This was later sold to CNET Network. By selling EDventure Holdings to CNET Networks in 2004, Dyson broadened her new business opportunities.
Now her record of involvement includes multiple areas: health care, private aviation & space, and IT. She is an investor or sits on the board of companies like MeetUp Inc. (US), Midentity (UK), Flickr (US, sold to Yahoo!), del.icio.us (US, sold to Yahoo!), Evernote (US), Boxbe (US), 23andMe (US), Airship Ventures (US), Eventful.com (US), Sunlight Foundation (US). This is not the complete list of the companies that Esther Dyson is involved in.
Her vast interests and vision goes beyond the United States boarders. She sees opportunities in the emerging markets of Russia, Hungary and Belarus. She is currently investing in CVO Group (Hungary), Epam (Belarus), IBS Group (Russia, advisory board), Vatera (Hungary), and Yandex (Russia).
Despite her busy schedule she is an active journalist and a writer. She publishes one of the most intellectual articles on technology, the monthly newsletter Release 1.0. In 1997, Dyson published Release 2.0. A book on how the Internet affects individuals’ lives. Her other work includes Release 3.0, her bimonthly column for the New York Times. She has a weblog Release 4.0 and an occasional contributor to online Huffington Post as Release 0.9.
Dyson travels a great deal. She is lives without a telephone at home and prefers not to drive a car. She is a remarkable individual who thinks large and has a unique vision of the future.
WITI (Women In Technology International), the world’s leading professional organization for executive women in technology, will truly inspire “Collaboration, Strategy and Growth” through hands on speaking engagements and panel discussions at the Annual WITI Women and Technology Summit in San Jose, CA September 12-14, 2010.
Top technology leaders from Clean Tech, Mobile, Search, Cloud, Social Media, and Business teach WITI Summit attendees how to capture and target more customers, build stronger relationships with existing customers and take advantage of the applications and tools to build a stronger web presence, increase revenue and streamline costs for their companies.
Girls in Tech Members receive a 20% discount!
Speakers and Panelists will Include:
 Sandy CarterVice President, Software Business Partners, IBM |
 Nilofer MerchantEntrepreneur, CEO & Chief Strategist, Rubicon Consulting |
 Kathy ChouVP, PSG Americas Sales Strategy & Operations, Hewlett Packard |
 Bernadette NixonSenior Vice President, Global Field Marketing, CA |
 Bernard GoldenCEO, HyperStratus |
 Sally JenkinsVice President, Worldwide Marketing, Symantec |
 Vanessa AlvarezIndustry Analyst, Frost & Sullivan |
 Ghennipher WeeksCo-Founder, Applied Connectioneering, Inc |
Click Here for a Complete Schedule of Events!
Including The 15th Annual WITI Hall of Fame Awards
Join WITI as we honor key women innovators from science and technology on Monday, September 13th in the Silicon Valley. Katie Boehret, reporter for The Wall Street Journal, will serve as MC. This year’s honorees will be:
 Sandy CarterVice President, IBM Software Group Business Partners |
 Dr. Ruth DavidPresident and CEO, Analytic Services Inc. |
 Dr. Adele GoldbergFounding Chairman, ParcPlace Systems, Inc. |
 Dr. Susie WeeCTO, Client Cloud Services, Hewlett-Packard |
 Dr. Ruth WestheimerFellow, New York Academy of Medicine, Yale and Princeton Universities |
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Click Here for Details | Download the Press Release | Videos of Past Recipients |
Register Now! use discount code: GITsum10 for 20% off!
Girls in Tech and Vator.tv are excited to announce the AMPLIFY Business Pitch Competition.
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 startups, which will be held on November 18, 2010 in San Francisco.
Our keynote speaker is Esther Dyson, an active angel investor in a variety of start-ups, for-profit and otherwise, around the world. She also operates as the Internet’s court jester, a person of no institutional importance who somehow manages to speak the truth and to be heard when and where it matters. She does business as EDventure, the reclaimed name of the company she owned for 20-odd years before selling it to CNET Networks in 2004.
Her primary activity is investing in start-ups and guiding many of them as a board member. Her board seats include 23andMe, Airship Ventures, Boxbe, Voxiva, Eventful, Evernote, IBS Group (Russia, advisory board), Meetup, Midentity (UK), NewspaperDirect, Yandex (Russia)…and WPP Group (not a start-up). Some of her other direct IT investments include Flickr and Del.icio.us (sold to Yahoo!), BrightMail (sold to Symantec), Orbitz (sold to Cendant), Medstory and Powerset (both sold to Microsoft), Plazes (sold to Nokia), Tacit (sold to Oracle), BlogAds, BrightHouse, ChoiceStream, Dopplr, Dotomi, Linkstorm, Mashery, Organized Wisdom, Ovusoft, PatientsLikeMe, Resilient,Technorati, ThingD, Vizu.com and Zedo. Indirectly, she is an investor in Amee.cc and Wesabe.
What you win:
15 finalists will present onstage at the Amplify event in November 2010 in San Francisco to an audience of 150 and a panel of experienced entrepreneurs and investors as judges. Presenters will gain visibility, feedback — and perhaps even funding. All applicable entrants will receive discount passes to the conferences, and runners-up will be given VIP passes. Further prizes TBA.
Time frame: The competition launches Tuesday, August 17 and ends November 5th.
Who should apply:
Startups at any stage of maturity pre-exit with female leadership are eligible to apply.
Leadership is defined as:
–A female CEO or COO or CTO
–A female founder who remains on the senior management team
(See ’round details’ for more information about the type of companies we are seeking)
*Please note: Presenters DO NOT have to purchase a ticket to this event (and can have one free ticket for a guest). Please email info@girlsintech.net for more information.
How to apply:
Submissions are in the form of a Vator company profile. We encourage video as it gives us a better sense of who’s behind the company. For what to include in your video, see below under, “see more details”
How do you submit:
First register. Then create a profile for your company. The more comprehensive your company profile is, the more likely to get votes, ratings and be reviewed. Once you create your company profile, then just click the “participate in this competition” button on the top right of this competition page.
How to win:
Get out the vote on Vator! More votes on Vator will drive up your chances of winning. The popular vote on Vator will determine the top 10 finalists across the different tracks. Voting for top 10 ends on November 1st.
Register to attend: here
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When: Thursday, November 18, 2010
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Where: TBD, San Francisco, California
* There is a tiered pricing structure, depending on when you purchase your tickets, so get your tickets well in advance for the best discount!
AMPLIFY also sponsored by:
Girls in Tech is proud to sponsor:
The 4th annual GoingGreen Silicon Valley is a two-and-a-half-day executive event features CEO presentations and high-level debates on the most promising emerging green technologies and new entrepreneurial opportunities. Cutting-edge greentech CEOs will meet the speakers and movers & shakers from the biggest industries around. Green technology innovators are transforming trillion dollar industries — and the solutions they are delivering not only promise to clean up pollution & restore ecosystems, but also to bring abundance and prosperity to everyone on earth. In fundamental areas: water, energy, and land — resource abundance is just around the corner through the power of technology and free markets.
AlwaysOn is offering Girls In Tech members a $1000.00 discount to GoingGreen Silicon Valley. (However, register early to reserve your spot.) We look forward to seeing you there!
- Click here to buy your ticket –
For more info: http://www.aonetwork.com/AOEvents/GoingGreen/GoingGreen-Silicon-Valley
| September 2, 2010 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 10:00 pm |
PLEASE NOTE: THE DATE HAS CHANGED FOR THIS EVENT – SEPTEMBER 2ND
Many companies today don’t get funded. Considering that, how does a startup survive tough competition, company growth, and unpredictable markets with virtually zero capital? To address these questions and concerns, the producers of Failchat have compiled a panel of founders who’ve been there and investors who’ve seen it happen. At the fourth installation of Failchat, panelists will discuss whether it’s possible to get by without funding, how to balance the budget if you try, and what problems you are likely to encounter. They’ll also explore what tools to use, how to stay lean, stories of what hasn’t worked, and other fundamentals of the self-funded process. Each FailChat attracts an intimate and targeted group of early-stage founders and entrepreneurs to discuss the common mistakes and missteps that startups and small businesses take.
FailChat #4: How to Survive Without Funding
August 17, 6:30 – 9:30
Parisoma: 1436 Howard St. SF
Beer, wine, non-alcoholic beverages, and appetizers will be provided throughout the seminar.
Panelists currently include: Pat Diven from AddToAny, Lyn Williams from MySoiree, Gregarious Narain from Lil’Grams, and Christine Herron from First Round Capital.
UPDATE: Use coupon code GirlsinTech to get 25% off the ticket price!
In an article in the San Jose Mercury News (08/08/10) Mike Cassidy recalls a recent tech conference he had attended, where the moderator of a panel discussion complained that it took him quite a while to find 6 women CEO’s to be his speakers. The audience as well as moderator agreed that it was a shame this was so .. But at the same time, there is the hope that this is changing very soon. He goes on to say that, there are encouraging signs that there is a new wave of female entrepreneurs, who are set to make a difference to this statistic in the tech field. According to Carol Realini (who was one of the six women on stage at the conference) it is better for women now than in the past 10 years, and that she sees them being “taken more seriously and doing serious things.” This we like to hear!
The question now becomes: exactly what will it take for more women to become business founders and CEO’s? “The challenge of being a woman CEO is, one: you’ve got to get in the game. So, you have to be willing to try,” says Realini, who is the CEO of Obopay, a mobile payment company out of Redwood City, CA. Realini is a good example of this new wave, as someone who has taken one company public, sold another company, and has started her third in Obopay, raising $140 million in the span of five years. She says that the key to women breaking in with the same numbers as men, where start-ups and company leading is concerned, is two: to know how to raise funds – - in other words, how to work the venture capital world. Thirdly, she also notes the importance learning how to hear “no” and moving on, of asking for help from those who know more about a given area than you do, and being able to give up your personal life for a long period of time.
Cassidy also points towards another source of encouraging news in this arena, for predicting the new wave of women entrepreneurs. A recent white paper by an Oakland venture capitalist, Cindy Padnos, which elaborates on the fact that “women are increasingly positioning themselves in the same way men have historically.” She demonstrates this by the list of women who are starting companies, taking companies public, and giving investors returns on their investments in bigger ways than before. (To view this paper, you can access it at www.illuminate.com/white paper.)
So, we see that this new slate of women entrepreneurs is inevitably coming up. In addition, as these women dominate their marketspace and companies and, in turn, sell them or move on to other things, we might see them going into the VC arena — where they will ultimately help other women to win funding for their new ventures. For women in tech, this is a promising and much overdue trend.
(quotes courtesy mercurynews.com)
Driving out of foggy San Francisco and into the phenomena that is Bay Area weather, I begin removing my scarf and coat as I enter sunny Mountain View. Mint.com, acquired by Intuit, resides in the Intuit campus which is beautifully lined with greenery, fountains, and meandering pathways. Aaron Patzer, the only Founder of Mint is an unassuming 29 year old whose brains and hard work led him to be named as one of CNN Money’s six Money Heroes in the US in 2008, and Inc. magazine included him in a list of the Top 30 US Entrepreneurs under 30.
“Back in 2005, while using Quicken to catch up on his personal budgeting, Aaron Patzer realized that he was in for an afternoon of tedious accounting-type work: poring over his statements, filling in gaps in entries, and categorizing dozens of purchases. All this effort just to get to the answer to one, seemingly simple question: How much did I spend this month? And on what?
After a couple of hours, when Aaron couldn’t get that answer (and he holds Masters degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from Princeton and Duke) he started to wonder if there wasn’t a better way. So instead of finishing his Quicken update that day, he began thinking about building what would become Mint.com.” -Mint.com
In asking Aaron what his biggest obstacle is in obtaining users, Aaron notes two things. The first and possibly the most obvious is security. It was the first thing I questioned when asked to check out Mint.com. As security goes, Mint.com offers bank-level security, the inability to move money and the ability to register anonymously. Even more so, Mint’s alerts actually notify you of fraudulent transactions on all accounts. Click HERE to learn more about Mint’s security.
The second hindrance people may have in joining Mint.com is fear of the truth. Some of us, especially us ladies, do not want to be reminded of how much we spent at Nordstrom’s annual sale. Ignorance is bliss in many cases and although it may be a hard pill for some of us to swallow, in the long run it will prove to bring much more confidence in one’s spending and peace for what the future could hold.
Many of Mint user’s testimonies have uncovered a treasure chest of information. Some say they had NO idea that they spent that much at Starbucks, or that an old gym back in college was still charging them, or that a certain transaction with their bank results in a $10 fee, and even that their average monthly savings could have awarded them an extra 5% if they had set up an ING account. Mint not only helps analyze and manage your money, it also recommends different ways to save, invest, and build wealth as well.
Mint just launched a new feature that is right up our alley! As women, we have a number of fantasy items that we would love to run out and buy… but as smart, efficient, and cost conscious women, we do not do it. Many women today are smarter and savvier and are [hopefully] not running up their credit cards to buy Jimmy Choo shoes they can’t afford because they were inspired by Sex and the City. They can, however, use Mint.com to help them reach their Choo goals the right way!
At Mint.com you can set a goal, play with how much you’d need to set aside each month to reach your goal by different deadlines and monitor your success rates.
There’s no excuse, get on Mint.com and get in the know about your finances. Start planning for the things you really want in life… whether it’s the designer wedding dress of your dreams, the Land Rover that can’t fit in your San Francisco garage, or even simply a new set of cashmere for the upcoming winter. As a Girl in Tech, everything else is online, why wouldn’t your finances be too? It’s worth a go, check it out!
| August 19, 2010 | to | August 21, 2010 |
| August 19, 2010 | to | August 21, 2010 |
Will You Be in Seattle for Gnomedex?
The Conference of Inspiration and Influence – where we showcase how Technology is changing the world! Read theGnomedex FAQ and then Register Now!
- How? Here: Register now! – Gnomedex is also partnering with pii2010, so join Geek Week and buy your ticket to both.
- Who? Influencers, Entrepreneurs, and Tech Enthusiasts!
- What? A confluence of leading bloggers and new media!
- When? August 19 – 21, 2010
- Where? Seattle, WA
- Why? Its the Social Media event of the year!
And…
- The Schedule is ever-evolving!
- Tags are simply “Gnomedex” and/or “Gnomedex10″
- The pre-registration party will likely be Thursday, August 19, at 7pm.
How is Gnomedex Different from other Conferences?
- An intersection between technology and community
- Technology that transforms and extends the human experience
- Social Media stories that inspire and empower
- Conversations that become the stage: the backchannel is the frontchannel
- The Science and Mathematics of our Real Lives
Why Attend Gnomedex?
- It’s a Whos Who of Social Media leadership
- Meet Movers, Shakers, & Deal Makers
- We’re tapping into the Conversation Economy
- Gnomedex is the most affordable conference of its kind
- Important for new or existing company strategies
