What does it mean to you to build a web app that’s social by default? Ever wonder how to get your product ideas from a paper napkin to getting launched so that hundreds of millions of people can use them? Do you have questions on how to integrate with Facebook’s APIs? Are you interested in learning more about how to monetize your Facebook applications?
This Facebook Developer Garage and Hackathon is hosted in conjunction with Girls in Tech <www.girlsintech.net> to try to help you figure out answers to these questions and build something awesome!
To participate, please choose one of the two options:
1) Either submit a Hackathon idea on this wiki: [Facebook & Girls in Tech Dev Garage/Hackathon wiki] and come prepared to hack!
OR
2) Purchase a Girls in Tech Donation Ticket for $20 and come join the festivities: Purchase tickets
We will only accept participants that complete one of the two participant options above.
We hope to see you there!
Cheers,
Facebook and Girls in Tech
Every year, not just the tech community, but the wider business community (not to mention music & film) gets together for South by Southwest in Austin. This year, please help support our Girls in Tech charter by voting for our panel to be selected and represent you and all women in tech next March!
This year’s proposed topic is: “Bridging the Geo-Gap to Empower Women in Technology.” Groups supporting the increase of numbers of women in technology have sprouted up and are tremendous. working to improve that situation. If you’re a woman in a developed country, groups and organizations for women in tech are everywhere. However, in many parts of the world, these types of initiatives are either just starting – with varying levels of organization and support – or they’re non-existent. But, we all now they are just as important — if not more important — in bringing these areas of the globe up to the level to be able to adapt and even compete with their counterparts abroad. Thus, by connecting women in tech on a global level, we can begin to make in-roads to start making things happen in these disadvantaged areas as well. The panel will address following questions:
- What’s the current state of women in technology both “home” and abroad?
- What have been current obstacles in some parts of the world for these initiatives, and what are some solutions?
- What are some of the ways we’ve been able to bridge the geo-gap to connect women in technology around the world?
- What are some ways we hope to improve the geo-gap to empower women in technology?
- What are some specific examples/case studies of this being successful?
So, cast your ‘thumbs up’ now, as voting closes soon. Now it’s our turn to start to “pay it forward” in a big way!
VOTE here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/7848 (Panel Picker closes Fri., Aug. 27th at 1 minute till midnight)
If you know amazing women entrepreneurs involved in new startups, please encourage them to apply to TechCrunch Disrupt (official deadline is Sunday, August 8, though we accept late stragglers for 1-2 weeks after that date.)
Every year it seems that the women’s conferences do recap posts where they cite the low number of women founders at TechCrunch events. This year, we’d really like your help getting ahead of the curve… help us find amazing women to put on stage and let us write about how you helped us surface important new talent. We can only put things on stage if we know about them.
Application details are here:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/apply-techcrunch-disrupt/#comments
Specific suggestions, please feel free to reach out to me directly. Thank you and best,
Heather
310.871.4351 cell / heather@techcrunch.com
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
Organize Your Finances
Find That Perfect Vacation
Entertain Yourself
Bargain Shop Online
Beth Kuenstler; Director of Partnership Development, CARE
Beth Kuenstler is Director of Partnership Development for CARE, one of the world’s largest international humanitarian organizations, with headquarters in Atlanta, GA and operations in over 65 countries. In her position, Beth leads CARE’s new approach for partnering with Fortune 100 companies to increase brand awareness by engaging consumers and employees in CARE’s poverty-fighting work. Since joining CARE in 2005, Beth has developed marketing partnership strategies that have produced over ten million dollars in media value and increased financial support. Prior to joining CARE, Beth spent over 10 years in consumer and high-tech marketing with Procter & Gamble, Kodak and Adobe. Her nonprofit experience includes the Executive Director role of San Francisco-based Hands On Bay Area, a local affiliate of the national organization Points of Light Foundation/Hands On Network. In her role as Executive Director, Beth oversaw the engagement of nearly five thousand corporate and community volunteers that annually contributed the equivalent of over one million dollars of time to local nonprofits.
Beth holds a MBA from Purdue University, where she also garnered national recognition for founding the Management Volunteer Program. The program is in its fifteenth year of engaging graduate students in their local neighborhoods to spark a life-long commitment to community service and philanthropy.
Aaron Lee; Co-Founder, RedBeacon
Aaron works on product design and engineering at Redbeacon. Prior to Redbeacon, Aaron was one of the founding engineers on Google Video. He later became the Tech Lead on YouTube monetization, building products that spanned AdSense, AdWords and YouTube. He was also a Launch Engineer, helping launch many other Google products and mentoring and promoting engineers. Aaron was one of the angel investors in startup Blade3D and also provided technical advice to startup Cooliris. Aaron received his Ph.D. from Princeton and M.A. & B.A. from University of Cambridge.
Charlene Li; Founder, Altimeter Group
Charlene Li is the Founder of Altimeter Group and co-author of the business bestseller, “Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies“, published by Harvard Business Press in May 2008. She is currently working on her next book, “Open: How Leaders Win By Letting Go”, to be published in May 2010 by Jossey-Bass. She frequently consults and speaks on social and emerging technologies and publishes a blog, The Altimeter. Charlene is one of the most frequently-quoted industry analysts and has appeared on 60 Minutes, The McNeil NewsHour, ABC News, CNN, and CNBC. She is also frequently quoted by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USAToday, Reuters, and The Associated Press. She is a much-sought after public speaker and has presented frequently at top technology conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo, SXSW, Search Engine Strategies and the American Society of Association Executives.
Jessica Livingston; Founding Partner, Y Combinator
Jessica Livingston is a founding partner at Y Combinator, a seed-stage venture firm based in Mountain View, CA. She is the author of Founders at Work, a collection of interviews with founders about the early days of their startups. Previously, she was vice president of marketing at investment bank Adams Harkness. In addition to her work with startups at Y Combinator, Livingston organizes Startup School (www.startupschool.org)
To register for the conference, please click on the following link:
Mari Baker; CEO, PlayFirst, Inc.
Mari Baker is currently CEO of PlayFirst, Inc. With over 20 years of experience in consumer technology, including roles as CEO of Navigenics, Inc., President of BabyCenter, LLC (a Johnson & Johnson Company), and as a Senior Vice President and General Manager at Intuit, Inc., Baker has demonstrated her ability to grow and develop successful organizations and products. Baker played a significant role in the success of BabyCenter.com and Quicken, including expanding these products internationally. Baker has been involved in several start-ups, including product marketing roles at Migent, Inc. and Now Software, Inc., and board roles with BigWake, RuleSpace, and currently, Cozi Group. Baker served on the board of trustees of Stanford University from 1996 – 2003, Peninsula Habitat for Humanity from 1999-2002, was named to the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame in 2001, and as one of Silicon Valley’s Most Influential Women in 2009. A graduate of Stanford University, Baker lives in Portola Valley with her husband and three young daughters.
Sandy Jen; Co-Founder and CTO, Meebo
Sandy is a co-founder of meebo in Mountain View. She majored in Computer Science at Stanford and after graduation, worked as a software developer at Xilinx in San Jose. In 2005, Sandy started meebo with two friends from Stanford, Seth Sternberg and Elaine Wherry. In July of 2007, Nielsen/NetRatings named meebo the fastest-growing IM destination in the US – ahead of Google Talk and Skype Messenger. Investors include Sequoia Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Sandy climbs, plays ultimate frisbee a couple times a week, and really enjoys a good nap.
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Elisa Camahort Page; COO, BlogHer
As BlogHer’s COO, Elisa Camahort Page leads events, marketing, public relations and research for BlogHer, while working to ensure that all company operations deliver on our vision. A longtime Silicon Valley marketing executive, Elisa was at the vanguard of professional and business blogging. Prior to co-founding BlogHer, Elisa was running a marketing consultancy, Worker Bees, and was among the first to integrate corporate marketing strategies into the social media environment. Worker Bees followed a successful career as in the cable broadband sector. Her most recent corporate position was Senior Director of Product Marketing at Terayon Communication Systems, where she managed multiple product lines and senior product management staff. In addition to her many personal blogs, Elisa is widely read as BlogHer’s conference leader and reality television editor. Elisa is a frequent public speaker, bringing research data about women and online communities to life in recent keynote sessions at MediaBistro Circus, Fem 2.0, New Comm Forum and WOMMA Marketing Summit. Elisa is a founding Fellow of the Society for New Communications Research and serves on the Board of Directors of the 42nd Street Moon Theatre in San Francisco, the programming advisory committee for SXSW Interactive and the Board of Advisors of the Anita Borg Institute.
Poornima Vijayashanker; Senior Software Engineer, Mint.com
Poornima Vijayashanker graduated from Duke University with a double degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science. After graduating she headed out to Silicon Valley, where she first worked for Synopsys as an R&D Engineer, and started working towards a Masters in CS at Stanford. She left her Masters to join Mint.com in 2006 as the third employee, and has remained the only female engineer there. As of January 2010 she will be leaving mint to become the CEO and Founder of her own stealth startup. Aside from being a coder, entrepreneur, speaker, and mentor to junior engineers, Poornima blogs on Femgineer.com, is an avid traveler, foodie, and a competitive Bikram yogini.
After attending several un-conferences, workshops, meet-ups and dinner parties in and around the technology scene in China, I decided that I had enough information to create a much-needed iPhone application for women in the tech industry, which often times makes up a very small percentage of the people at each tech event (we’re actively changing that through Girls in Tech, however). I entered the “Save Me!” app idea in a “build an iPhone app in 15-minutes competition” and with a glue stick, one piece of construction paper and a Sharpie, we came up with the following app:
Save Me! Ever been stuck at a bar, conference or any event getting hit on by that oh so persistent person with no escape in sight? If so, Save Me! can help you. It’s super easy to use – choose a mercifully short time delay on the app screen ranging from 5 to 15 to 30 seconds, and then press the “Save Me! heart”. In a few seconds you’ll receive a realistic fake call form your “office” allowing you to make your emergency-related excuse and exit the situation or conversation. The application ended up winning the competition by popular audience demand (and applause) so Reign Design decided to be proactive and design and develop the application in one day! It was released by Apple within a two-week period.
Save Me! is a concept application designed by Girls in Tech Founder and CEO, Adriana Gascoigne in 15-minutes and developed and published by Reign Design in one day! For more information about Save Me! visit the Reign Design website.
O’Reilly Where 2.0
March 30-April, 1, 2010
San Jose, CA
http://en.oreilly.com/where2010
Register now and save an additional 20% with discount code: whr10git
Now in its sixth year, Where 2.0 is one of the world’s foremost events dedicated to exploring the emerging technologies in the geospatial industry. At Where 2.0, we expose the tools pushing the boundaries of the location frontier, track the emergence of new business models and services, and examine new sources of data and the platforms for collecting them.
Happening March 30-April 1, 2010 at the San Jose Marriott in San Jose, California, Where 2.0 brings together the people, projects, and issues building the new technological foundations and creating value in the location industry. Join with other developers, technologists, CTOs, researchers, geographers, academics, business developers, and entrepreneurs to debate and discuss what’s viable now, and what’s lurking just below the radar and how to gain a competitive edge.
At Where 2.0, you’ll find source mapping tools, reality mining, open standards for data and location web services, and sensors for obtaining location data. We’ll learn how the established geo industry is reacting to the first businesses making money from their grassroots geospatial projects. There’s no better place to meet the people behind the mashups, the people behind the platforms, and the people looking ahead to the future of geospatial.
Where 2.0 2010 encompasses a full day of workshops followed by two days of sessions featuring a unique combination of high profile keynotes with big players, lightning talks, panel discussions, demos, product launches, Q&A time, and much more. The most innovative and interesting people in this space are featured on stage, and they stay around to debate and discuss with other conference-goers off stage.
Register now and save an additional 20% with discount code: whr10git
We’re really excited to share some of our confirmed speakers with you for the upcoming Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. We’re anticipating an amazing roster of the top women leaders within the tech industry as well as a variety of influential and inspirational professionals attending the conference.
The Catalyst Conference, presented by Girls in Tech catalyzes the career development of women working in high-tech. By offering high-level keynotes and discussions from successful women at the top of their game alongside workshops led by experts in innovation and collaboration, the Catalyst Conference enables & propels women to take the next step, whether they’re launching a venture, making waves in the corporate world, looking to join an innovative startup, or building their online and digital-media media brand. Our 2010 theme is “Curiosity,” which we believe is essential for inspiration, innovation and driving change.
Jennifer Fonstad; Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Jennifer Fonstad is a Managing Director of DFJ. Considered one of the most senior women in venture today, Ms. Fonstad invests broadly in early stage companies. Recent investment successes include Athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN), Lumenos (acquired by Wellpoint, NYSE: WLP), and NetZero (NASDAQ: UNTD). In addition, Jennifer sits on the investment committees for DFJ VinaCapital, DFJ’s partner fund in Vietnam, DFJ Tamir Fishman, DFJ’s partner fund in Israel, DFJ Frontier, and serves as adviser to the DFJ China team. She began her career with Bain and Company after spending a year teaching math to high school students in sub-Sahara Africa. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Harvard Business School . Jennifer is married with four children.
Jeanette Gibson; Director, New Media, Corporate Communications, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Jeanette Gibson leads Cisco’s New Media Communications group where she is responsible for extending Cisco’s leadership and innovation with new media and overseeing the vision and direction of Cisco’s award winning online newsroom, News@Cisco (http://newsroom.cisco.com). In her role as head of new media strategy, Gibson is responsible for developing and communicating the direction of Cisco’s corporate blogging (http://blogs.cisco.com), multimedia (video, podcasts, video podcasts) and social networking initiatives and driving its web strategy for communications websites, News@Cisco, Investor Relations and Analyst Relations Websites. Prior to working with the News@Cisco team, Gibson ran the Corporate Technology PR team at Cisco where she was responsible for promoting Cisco’s technology vision and strategy and securing top-tier business press for Cisco and its senior executive team. Gibson is a founding member of the Social Media Business Council (www.socialmedia.org) and member of the Society for New Communications Research. News@Cisco has received numerous awards for its excellence in online communications and was named #1 website for serving media by the Financial Times-Bowen Craggs 2009 global index of corporate websites. Gibson holds a B.A. in Communications from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Maha Ibrahim; General Partner, Canaan Partners
Maha Ibrahim is a technology trend spotter with deep operational experience. She joined Canaan in March of 2000 and focuses on digital media, networking and wireless investments. Maha has won numerous industry awards and is frequently invited to speak at digital media conferences. Maha holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. She currently sits on the boards of eBillme, MiNO Wireless, SenSage , Virsto and Watercooler. Maha is an active member of the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab.
Leila Chirayath Janah; Founder, Samasource
Leila Chirayath Janah is the founder of Samasource, a social business that connects women, youth, and refugees living in poverty to microwork — small, computer-based tasks that build skills and generate life-changing income. Samasource was a winner in the International Business in Development Challenge in 2007 and the Stanford Social Enterprise Challenge in 2008, and is a current grantee of the Rockefeller Foundation. In recognition of her work with Samasource, she received the Rainer Arnhold Fellowship and has been invited to serve as a Social Enterprise Institute Fellow. Prior to Samasource, Janah was a founding Director of Incentives for Global Health, an organization formed by Professors Thomas Pogge and Aidan Hollis and advised by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen to develop new financing mechanisms for pharmaceutical R&D on diseases of the poor. She has served as a Visiting Scholar with the Stanford Program on Global Justice and a Visiting Researcher at Australian National University’s Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. Leila received her BA from Harvard University in 2005, where she led the Harvard International Development Group and published work on the Rwandan genocide.
