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Naturally Gifted Female Founders to Watch In Tech

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By Elissa Rose (Assistant Editor, Women 2.0) This week at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, there was a panel titled "What if you could create a startup?" The panel was made up of women, one of which was a Partner at the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. She said, as paraphrased by Forbes, "she thinks that women should work on things they are naturally gifted at, and she believes shopping is one of them."

Here at Women 2.0, we believe the best response is to give some notable counter-examples to her assertion. The following are naturally gifted female founders doing what they're best at and making money doing it -- and none are limited to the pink ghetto.

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“Black Girls Code” Brings More Women of Color to Silicon Valley

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By Kiratiana Freelon (Contributor, Loop 21) If black girls can rock and black girls can travel then they can surely code, right? The statistics show otherwise. Women of color represent less than 3% of the people in technology fields.

But if it’s up to Kimberly Bryant, pretty soon tons of black (and brown) girls will be coding, which is the art of creating computer programs. She is the founder of Black Girls Code, a Bay Area organization whose mission is to increase the young women of color in the field of digital and computer technology.

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Confessions Of A Not-So-Public Speaker (O’Reilly Conferences)

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By Suzanne Axtell (Technology Evangelist, O'Reilly) One of Web 2.0 Summit 2011's memorable moments came early, when program chair John Battelle was gently but earnestly admonished by anthropologist Genevieve Bell for not having more women on stage that day. Cue lots of applause from the audience. John rejoined that he wouldn't discuss the number of women who had turned him down.

Part of my job here at O'Reilly is to encourage women, people of color, and other folks often underrepresented at tech conferences to be speakers at our events.

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Women Who Code: First Lightning Talks Event Videos Posted!

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By Elaine Tsai (Organizer, Hack Nights for Beginners)  

Women Who Code (WWCode) held our first lightning talks event on Tuesday, October 25. The event was filled with excitement, involvement, and proof that there are plenty of women interested in programming, hacking, and all things related to changing the gender gap in the tech industry.

With an amazing turnout rate of over 70 women, the ladies had plenty of time to meet new friends, reconnect over past programming projects and discuss new ideas. Sasha Laundy, founder of Women Who Code, kicked off the event by announcing

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How To Gain Market Access (Your Business Is Ahead of Its Time)

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By Sabrina Kiefer (Contributing Writer, The Next Women) Some entrepreneurs or inventors find themselves in a difficult position: they may have a technology for which no clear market application exists as yet, or they’ve devised a concept to solve a problem that prospective customers don’t yet think of as a priority, meaning that demand isn’t urgent. So the environment is "uncertain".

These entrepreneurs also face a difficult value chain, in which incumbents are powerful and perhaps not interested in the startup’s offering, or gaining access to potential end markets involves a complex sales process. They may also

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Lady-Businesses Should Be All About Lady-Skills, Like Shopping

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By Anna North (Contributing Writer, Jezebel) Are you a woman with an entrepreneurial bent? By all means, follow your dreams — but when you're drafting that business plan, stick to things you're naturally good at. Like shopping!

That's the advice a female venture capitalist gave at the recent Grace Hopper Conference on Women in Computing.

Writes Tara Tiger Brown at Forbes:

Imagine for a second what your reaction

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The Hatchery Co-Working Space Welcomes Women 2.0 To SOMA

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By Rahul Prakash (Partner, The Hatchery) I met Shaherose back in 2006 and knew she was onto something big when she told me she was a co-founder of an organization called Women 2.0. The valley was brimming with energy as we were in the midst of the web 2.0 surge and Shaherose, or Shai as I call her, would invite me to some of her events and solicit feedback.

I was always amazed by the execution of their events and the quality of the speakers. I distinctly remember hanging out at her apartment the night she got a deluge of business plan napkins for their very first "napkin challenge" and

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Social Good Startups Fertility Planit, Local Orbit, Autitouch, OllieMe

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By Angelina Strosahl (Co-Founder, DonationPay) I’ve now written quite a few words on how Astia and it’s dynamic community have impacted us here at DonationPay, but I haven’t talked specifically about the other business owners I encountered during the workshop week. The 2011 Astia ‘class’ is truly full of spectacularly talented, generous and innovative men and women; I felt very privileged to get to know everyone and be on the receiving end of their support and guidance.

Though Astia is an incubator for for-profit businesses, there were many I encountered during the program week

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Interview With Mobile Matchmaking Startup RndVoo Founder Sophie-Charlotte Moatti

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Editor's note: Sophie-Charlotte Moatti is Co-Founder and CEO of Rendez-Vous Labs, creator of RndVoo. The a mobile service encourages people to connect with friends of friends and find activities to do together offline. RndVoo open beta is available free on most smartphone browsers here.Women 2.0: How did you come up with the idea for your mobile startup RndVoo, and how did find your co-founder? Sophie-Charlotte Moatti: The idea for RndVoo came about earlier this year, when my long-time friend and now co-founder Michel moved to San Francisco.

I kept trying to set him up with friends and we’d always ended up in a coffee shop, on my cell phone, looking up my girlfriends’ Facebook profiles. Then, he’d ping me to get my take

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Sheryl Sandberg’s GHC 2011 Keynote: More Pearls of Wisdom

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By Baat Enosh (VP Operations, Founder Labs) For the past 4 years, I've been living and breathing "Women In Tech" conversations. I've been working with Women 2.0, Founder Labs, and the National Center for Women & IT, focusing on getting more women to get into computing and found startups.

The conversation is complex and at time confusing. We are definitely in the middle of a revolution, and no doubt the outcome will produce a more equal and better world. But the question is -- how do we get there? Which parts of the puzzle do we need to focus on, and how do we do it?

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Stranger In A Strange Land OR Being A Woman In Tech

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By Kylie Sachs (Partner, Ascend Venture Group) In the last year, there has been a lot of talk about “the woman thing” and “the black thing” in tech – or specifically, the dearth of women and African-Americans in the technology industry. Is Silicon Valley/the Tech Industry racist and/or sexist? As a woman in tech who works at a minority run/founded/managed firm, I thought I would weigh in with a few thoughts.

First, broad sweeping statements only get you so far and are frankly not that interesting (Dramatic? Yes. Media generating? Possibly. Helpful? I am not so sure). The truth is, we can only

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Meet Companies Created in 3 Days (Startup Weekend)

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By April Joyner (Senior Reporter, Inc.) We've heard it before: You have a great idea, but you just don't have the time to build it into a sustainable company. Startup Weekend proves that notion false. The three-day event, which has been held in more than 120 cities, has spawned hundreds of businesses —- each in fewer than 54 hours.

Here's how it works: Participants pitch ideas for startups, which are usually (but not always) tech-based, and assemble into teams to build prototypes. Then, on the last day, the teams present their projects to a panel of local entrepreneurs and investors.

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JFDI–Innov8 2012 Bootcamp To Spawn Scalable Startups In Asia

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By Meng Weng Wong (Co-Founder & Social Engineer, JFDI.Asia) The JFDI–Innov8 2012 Bootcamp is just two months away! We expect 10 to 15 teams to start in January's batch. We've already recruited Startup Weekend winners from around the region, from Manila, Melbourne, Delhi, and Singapore.

JFDI’s mission is to spawn scalable startups in Asia, for Asia. We are interested in solving problems that matter to people in Asia. Companies like Mig33 and Viki are good examples of the kind of businesses we would like to create.

Each team will receive S$15,000 in investment

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Pay Gap Due To Women’s Ineffective Use of Networks

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By Elissa Rose (Assistant Editor, Women 2.0)  

Marie Lalanne and Paul Seabright of the Toulouse School of Economics measured the effectiveness of executives' networks using a database of board members in Europe and America.

They found that executive directors with larger networks were paid 6% more, and the gap is larger for non-executives (14% more). They found the biggest difference between men and women, however, with women executives paid 17% less than male executives.

There are common explanations for this

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The Women 2.0 Editorial Staff.