Girls In Tech

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

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:

REGISTER HERE

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

http://en.oreilly.com/where2010

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.

Catalyst Conference Agenda

Catalyst Conference Speakers

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.

1. Learn how to catapult your career in technology through workshops and presentations from top, successful women in tech
2. Network with over 250 eager and influential women in the tech industry
3. Understand industry trends, what models are working and what models aren’t working
4. Promote your ideas and your company to a group of very targeted women in tech
5. Learn how you can create change by using the web tools and platforms available for developing nations
6. Participate in the Girls in Tech + Vator.tv pitch contest

To register, please use the following link: REGISTER

For more information on the Catalyst Conference, please use the following link: INFORMATION

Join us for Virtual Goods Summit 2009 and VGS University!

When:
VGS University – Thursday, October 29, 2009
Virtual Goods Summit – Friday, October 30, 2009

Where:
Westin Market Street, 50 Third Street, San Francisco, CA

Website: http://www.vgsummit.com/2009
Register: http://vgsummit2009-git.eventbrite.com (Save 15% using the code GIRLSINTECH)

The market opportunity for virtual goods continues to expand as developers and publishers of social games get a deeper understanding of how virtual goods work and how best to enhance gameplay and maximize revenue. This year’s 3rd annual Virtual Goods Summit on Friday Oct 30th will bring together thought leaders from Asia, Europe and the Americas to talk about what’s changed, what’s working, and the key challenges facing the industry going forward.

Come network with companies including Zynga, Nexon, Tencent, Viximo, Playfish, Paypal, Playdom and Offerpal and other leading developers in the virtual goods and social gaming space from Asia, Europe and the US.

New for this year, we’ve added a half-day seminar, VGS University on Thurs, Oct 29, designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the key fundamental drivers of virtual goods business models. Our group of experts will cover topics ranging from why virtual goods are effective to the ins and outs of managing a virtual economy, so join us for the day and learn from some of our industry’s leaders.

Confirmed Speakers and Panelists
* David Wallerstein, Tencent
* John Earner, Playfish
* Min Kim, Nexon
* Dai Watanabe, DeNa Global
* Andrew Trader (A.T.), Zynga
* Steve Meretzky, Playdom
* Amy Jo Kim, Shufflebrain
* Nils-Holger Henning, Bigpoint
* Benjamin Joffe, Plus8Star
* Jameson Hsu, Mochi Media
* Cary Rosenzweig, IMVU
* Brian Balfour, Viximo
* Adam Caplan, Super Rewards
* David Marcus, Zong
* Jeremy Liew, Lightspeed Venture Partners
* Steven Goh, mig33
* Owen Mahoney, Outspark
* John Smedley, Sony Online Entertainment
* Kevin Xu, IGG
* Zhan Ye, GameVision
* Renata Dionello, Paypal
* Ron Hirson, BOKU
* Siqi Chen, Serious Business
* Phlip Yun, NHN USA
* Keith Rabois, Slide
* David Jesse, Gaia Online
* Shanna Tellerman, Wildpockets
* Vikas Gupta, Jambool
* Bill Wang, Perfect World
* Geoff Cook, MyYearbook
* Bill Grosso, Live Gamer
* Robin Chan, XPD Media
* Dave Etling, InComm
* Ludovic Bodin, CMUNE
* Anu Shukla, Offerpal Media
* Fernando Paiz, Turbine
* Melinda Byerley, Linden Lab
* Roger Wood, ORCA
* Tim Chang, Norwest Venture Partners
* Eugene Yoo, Globespan Capital
* Will O’Brien, TrialPay
* Shin Takamiya, Globis Capital Partners
* Jinen Kamdar, Ning
* Lex Bayer, Spare Change (PlaySpan)
* Justin Smith, Inside Social Games

For more information, please email Charles Hudson (charles@vgsummit.com) or David Sachs (david@vgsummit2008.com).

Originally posted on the Geeks on a Plane blog

After a brief stint in Berlin, the GeeksOnaPlane crew flew in for a day and a half to feast on a typical German dinner with the Atoms & Bits conference crew and Felix Fidelsberger, entrepreneur and former Seedcamp UK winner for his start-up, Toksta. Severalthought-provoking discussions led me to believe that Berlin is the hub for innovation in Germany – the fact that East Berlin is relatively cheap in terms of real estate, creative resources and developers – makes it the perfect place to cultivate a tech start-up. One theme that came up over and over again was the fact that Germany is about 18 months behind the US in development and adoption of social media and internet innovation; not 1 year or 2 years, just 18 months. I heard that from a few engineers and entrepreneurs, which made me curious to learn more about this unusual 18-month cycle.

According to several independent observers, there are some “copy cat” innovators in Europe. Basically, these guys wait until technologies are innovated and new products are launched in Silicon Valley, tested out, and begin gaining buzz and user traction. After a few months in beta-mode, these folks start investigating whether or not it would be a good technology to essentially “copy” and bring to Germany and eventually, greater Europe. While this may seem like cheating, a few entrepreneurs have made quite a bit  of money using this technique and have been acknowledged as very successful as what they do.

Enter “18 months” – It takes about half a year to see if a company is generating buzz and attention through social media and word of mouth, another half a year for that company to ‘really’ figure out its monetization strategy, business model and at least be heading in the right direction to profitability, and another six months to analyze the data and begin to build and brand the “copy cat” product in Europe, to eventually launch in alpha within that six-month period. One of the these products is called “Jamba.”

Jamba! is a mobile phone content provider, based in Berlin, Germany. In China and the company’s English-speaking markets, currently Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, the company trades under the name Jamster. Jamba!’s main line of business is the creation and marketing of ringtones for mobile phones. It is perhaps best known for the Sweety the Chick and Crazy Frogcharacters. The company also sells insurance for mobile phones and home electronics and runs online gaming and online datingservices. In 2005 it started doing business in the United States and China.

(oh, and the “guy who hates Twitter” is a fellow that is creating a Web MD type product in Berlin who is 100%, absolutely convinced that Twitter will go away in 4 years. I really tried to convince him that he is wrong, Twitter is the best thing since sliced bread, however, he was very stubborn and held his ground. I told him that I was going to DM him on Twitter and RT his updates and include him in my Twitter feeds until he decides that it’s a worthwhile product. After all, you won’t be sold on a product if you don’t use it, right?)

BT or as folks in the US would know it – British Telecom, invited the Geeks on a Plane crew for a very elegant dinner (even though the majority of us were in ‘very’ casual attire consisting of flip-flops, jeans, t-shirts and sundresses). The BT executive committee wanted to engage with us to discuss the “cutting-edge,” new-ish innovations that they are integrating to their SME packages. The most prominent technologies or at least, the most popular, included the use of Ribbit in their mobile suite of services as well as CRM capabilities offered to the SMB’s to help organize their sales transactions and profits.

The view from the top of the BT tower was spectacular. It was a real treat to not only be able to see this amazing building looking over the city center of London, but also to mingle with some of the most powerful and intellectual executives of BT. The fact is that they embrace and encourage innovation within a very traditional telecom ecosystem. They understand that they have a long way to go, but are optimistic in creating a bridge between Silicon Valley and the UK and integrating more ways for the telecom industry to utilize the technologies that will optimize infrastructure, function and accessibility for SMB’s around the UK.

We had a total blast and thank JP and the BT executives for such a wonderful evening.

Here’s a litte more information about BT:

BT is the world’s oldest communications company, with a direct line of descent from the first commercial telecommunications undertaking in the world.  The Electric Telegraph Company incorporated in 1846, was the first anywhere to exploit leading edge telegraphy technology and introduce electrical communications to an astonished world. Within ten years an international  network had been developed, making communications possible within minutes and hours instead of days and weeks. The consequences for every aspect of society were dramatic and profound.