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Interview with a Plasma Physics Ph.D Dropout Turned Energy Entrepreneur: “Physics is Like a Bootcamp for Your Mind”

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By Danielle Fong (Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, Lightsail Energy) One month ago, I was interviewed by Jane Affleck as a profile piece for my Alma Mater, Dalhousie University.

Interviewer: You “started” a PhD at Princeton… why did you stop? Was it boring? Did you feel driven to just do your own thing?

Danielle Fong: I was more temperamentally suited towards my own thing -– though that was only part of it. I entered a program in Plasma Physics to focus on fusion energy –- the process that powers the sun. I thought that with a few good ideas, we could

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BeCouply Presents at NewME Accelerator Demo Day

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By Becky Cruze (Co-Founder, BeCouply) As detailed in a previous post, my boyfriend Pius Uzamere and I co-founded a tech startup called BeCouply. BeCouply is the mobile app that helps couples have epic social lives by making it easy to discover new date ideas, capture special moments and connect with other couples.

Pius and I are part of the inaugural class of the NewME Accelerator, the first accelerator in Silicon Valley that is focused on minority-led startups. The nine-week program, which is based in Mountain View, CA with co-working space in San Francisco, is the subject of CNN’s Black in America 4 with Soledad O’Brien, which

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Business Models: The Forgotten Middle Children of Startup World

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By Andy Barkett (Engineering Manager, Facebook) I hear a lot of elevator pitches. The most common conclusion to the pitch is, “Well, what do you think of my idea?” Honestly, I love most of the ideas and yet hate most of the pitches. It’s hard to answer, because the question can mean three different things:

  1. What do you think of my cool product idea? -OR-
  2. What do you think of my idea for a new business model? -OR-
  3. How do you like my business plan?

What’s the difference between these questions?

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Navigating the “Glass Maze” — Give Women a Technological Edge

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By Dr. Jane LeClair (Dean, School of Business and Technology, Excelsior College) Fifty-six percent of women working in technology vanish from their field in mid-career. That's 56 percent.

Think about that number for a second. For every woman entering a tech field such as engineering or software development after college graduation, there is a higher chance she will leave the profession than she will finish her career. It's really no wonder, then, that men hold nearly four out of five technology jobs. The industry will never achieve robust diversity until we figure out how to retain the women in their chosen technological fields.

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Bringing the Women 2.0 Revolution to SXSW 2012 – Please Vote!

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By Veronika Sonsev (Founder & CEO, InSparq) The tech industry has traditionally been a boys' club -- women have been under represented as developers, founders and c-level executives. However, thanks to traditional and social media, a network of loosely associated groups (Women 2.0, Change the Ratio, RailsBridge, Girls in Tech, Women in Wireless, etc.) and an army of women driven to change the ratio, we are starting to see some early signs of improvement:

  1. More women are pursuing computer science degrees.
  2. The number of startups lead by women is growing.
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54 Hours, Limitless Possibilities, Ideas & Pizza: My Startup Weekend Experience

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By Chelsea Rustrum (Entrepreneur, Free Mania) HoodPerks Team at Startup Weekend6:27pm on Friday night – I arrive at AOL headquarters and I'm greeted by the organizer, Ahmed, who I'd met before. I quickly fill out a "Hello my name is" badge and slap it against my thigh.

The building is open, airy and I can hear the entrepreneurial roar.

There appear to be 100 men milling around, talking in clusters, but I'm so stoked to be there I barely notice the vast gender imbalance.

I simply smile while greeting familiar faces and pushing through the crowd to get to the only other girl I can see, who

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SF MusicTech: Outstanding Women in the Music and Tech Industry

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By Melissa Tinitigan (Production Coordinator, SF MusicTech Summit) There is never a shortage of folks working to innovate and outshine each other with the hottest technology or most avant-garde business idea in Silicon Valley.

The SF MusicTech Summit IX on September 12, 2011 at Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco, the premier conference that brings together visionaries around internet music and technology, is proud to be featuring many powerful women who are doing just that in the music and technology space, including:

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How To Keep Your Startup On Track With Project Management

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By Natasha Murashev (Co-Founder & Director of Operations, Holler) Running a startup is like running on a treadmill. You keep running and running and after all the running, you still have to keep running. The treadmill gives you no mercy. It doesn’t slow down when you’re tired or thirsty, it just keeps going and going and you have to keep up or else you’ll fall off.

The key to mastering the treadmill is starting the run with realistic goals in mind. You have to know yourself well enough to set the optimal speed and running time for your body to keep going even when it gets rough. In a startup, that is

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PyLadies: Events, Workshops, Hackathons and Startup Kits

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By Esther Nam & Sophia Viklund (Co-Organizers & Board Members, PyLadies) The PyLadies’ mission is to promote and improve the Python community through workshops, outreach and social activities. It was started by a core group of seven female Python developers who decided that calls for diversity required action, rather than... repeated calls for diversity. We immediately set out to improve the gender balance of the Python community, starting with plans to organize a programming workshop for beginners. After three weeks of intense planning, networking and outreach, we held our first class, attended by 25 women and 2 men -- and sparked a movement in the development community that has worldwide impact.

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Partner event: The Alchemist Start-Up Master Class in Palo Alto

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The Alchemist Start-Up Master Class is a course taught by some of the Valley’s most influential mentors and directed at current and aspiring founders. The program helps start-ups tackle critical aspects of starting and growing a company. Our purpose is to provide a focused tool set for figuring out winning business strategies, customer acquisition and building/managing successful teams. From each lecture, you will walk away with a set of practical strategies and tactics as well as means to apply those to your own startup.

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Y Combinator Alum Jen McCabe Merges Contagion Health with Seattle Game Startup Health Month

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By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0) The new Habit Labs focuses on contextual computing for health behavior change. Jen McCabe is now CEO of Habit Labs, while co-founder Buster Benson serves as CTO. The merger will take Habit Labs from San Francisco to Seattle, where Jen's background in patient advocacy and social design will work with Buster's expertise in personalized recommendations and gamification techniques.

"There's something really interesting happening in Seattle with local startups, particularly in health and education. I'm gratified to find such a supportive community here.

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The Founding Dreams of Teens

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By Lisa Suennen (Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Psilos Group) VentureBeat recently asked: "Do teens make good founders?"

As the parent of a teenager, my immediate thought was, "Yeah, sure, right after they clean up their rooms and set the table, they can be totally awesome founders, as long as they can tear themselves away from the latest installment of the Twilight series." What do I know? As it turns out, some kids actually do get off the couch and take action to be the next Steve Jobs.

The VentureBeat post was about an entrepreneurial incubator put together by Teens in Tech, an 8-week summer

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The Women 2.0 Editorial Staff.