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Amazon Web Services Hosts Startup Challenge for Cash, Credit

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By Heesun Lho (Founding Team Member & Project Manager, YouNoodle) Amazon Web Services (AWS) is back with the annual AWS Start-up Challenge! The competition, which began in 2007, rewards some of the the best ideas and startup companies with not just cash prizes but also with AWS credits and great opportunities to get noticed. A combined $50,000 in cash and $50,000 in AWS credits goes to the grand prize winner!

This year, the AWS Start-up Challenge promises to be a much larger innovation campaign and has partnered with YouNoodle, a San Francisco-based startup company co-founded by Rebeca Hwang.

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Mega Startup Weekend: Exhilarating, Disastrous and Inspiring

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By Christina Gunarto (Strategic Alliances Manager, Smaato) Going to Mega Startup Weekend last weekend was like drinking ten 5-hour energy drinks. I have never had so little sleep in my life yet feel so energized. The side effect is an oscillation between feeling extremely invigorated and hitting rock bottom.

If I had to pick 3 adjectives to describe my experience during startup weekend it would be: exhilarating, disastrous, and inspiring.

First, what is Startup Weekend? Startup Weekend is a 54-hour event

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Dancing with the Startups: Classtivity CEO Payal Kadakia

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By Payal Kadakia (Co-Founder & CEO, Classtivity) I've always been a "dancetrepreneur" and it was this passion for dance and entrepreneurship that led me to take the biggest leap of my life -- founding Classtivity.

Dance has been a major presence during all phases of my life. Beginning at age three, I followed my heart to the stage, taking lessons and competing in Indian Dance competitions around the nation. As a student at MIT, my commitment to dance merged with my entrepreneurial spirit as I started an Indian Fusion Dance Troupe. Flash forward to life in New York City, where I founded

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A Pink Collar Tech Ghetto?

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By Tara Hunt (Co-Founder & CEO, Buyosphere) Jolie O’Dell, who is one of my favorite people in the world tweeted something yesterday that got the women of the tech world (and many men) up in arms.

It also ignited quite a lively backchannel conversation amongst the various women in tech groups I’m part of. The reactions (including mine) ranged from “I can see her point, but ‘embarrassment’ is a harsh way to put it,” to “OMFG &*#(&#)@#*@!” Mine was somewhere in between, but the biggest thing that struck me was how familiar it sounded.

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Startup Weekend (The Seven Deadly Sins Edition)

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By Renee DiResta (Associate, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures) Now that I’ve slept a bit, I thought I’d post about the Mega Startup Weekend held at Microsoft this past Friday through Sunday. This one was a bit different than others I’ve been to because the organizers pre-selected three verticals: Health, Education, and Gaming.

The weekend started off with a Mega-wide speech by Reid Hoffman, who encouraged everyone to “think big -- it takes the same amount of work and pain as thinking small.”

He gave best advice of the weekend in a comment

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The Art of Customer Research (Challenges of Qualitative Investigation)

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By Sheba Najmi (Participant, Founder Labs) Customer research really is an art.

I’ve seen fewer than a handful of excellent user experience researchers who have an innate knack for it. Unfortunately, more often than not, qualitative research is muddied by:

  • users wishing to please the researcher
  • unmindful leading questions by researchers, and
  • artificial settings and tasks that obfuscate true usage patterns.
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Interview with Rebecca Woodcock: Launching Cake Health Onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt

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By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0) Cake Health announced its public launch yesterday and presented at TechCrunch Disrupt 2011. We talked to co-founder Rebecca Woodcock about her experience finding a technical co-founder, building the product, and launching at TechCrunch Disrupt onstage.

Rebecca Woodcock: Since Founder Labs, the real making of Cake Health was finding the right co-founder -- that was critical. Teaming up with Andy was the best thing that happened to the company and brought it all together. We work incredibly well together and we're a great team.

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Partner event: Eric Ries’ Lean Startup Book Launch (Bulk Deals)

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This is a big week for startups. Eric Ries's book "The Lean Startup" launches today. As part of his book launch, there is a huge promotion on his blog. The prizes are ridiculous and come from Amazon AWS, KissMetrics, Assistly, Pivotal Tracker, etc. For example, buy 5 books for $96 to over $2,200 more in other prizes. Buy the book in bulk, evangelize the lean startup methodology! Women 2.0 readers get a free "Tier Upgrade" when buying a deal on the book (except AWS credits) this week only!

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Time to Stop Problems Before They Start: Online Behavioral Health

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By Eve Phillips (Co-Founder & CEO, Empower Interactive) The biggest chunk of US healthcare spending –- about 75% -- is on individuals with chronic diseases: issues like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, lung disease, and high blood pressure. And the majority of those illnesses are directly related to individual lifestyle choices.

Yet, instead of helping teach people how to make better choices about stress, food, smoking, and exercise, our healthcare system has focused on treating people after they’re sick –- the much more expensive option. While those efforts are very important, wouldn’t it also make sense to try to avoid those outcomes

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YEC Women Q&A: How Do I Find A Suitable Mentor?

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By Natalie MacNeil (Co-Founder, YEC Women) The following answers are provided by YEC Women. Co-Founded by Natalie MacNeil and Scott Gerber, YEC Women is an initiative of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs.

The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment and provides its members with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of a business’s development and growth.

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Javascript Class For Programmers Online (Big Savings)

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The online course Javascript for Programmers approaches Javascript as a programming language. To build today's modern web applications, you need to know more than how to create an "onclick" handler or paste some sample jquery code. Understanding the fundamentals of the language and how to create object-oriented code will allow you to access to the power of Javascript. Women 2.0 members save 60% on this course when you sign up for the class for $75 thru September 27, 2011 (regular price $195).

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NYC Famine Hackathon: Will Hack For Food — Literally

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By Farrah Bostic (Founder, Near Future Media) Here’s the problem. There is a massive drought in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. People are starving. The crisis is so bad, people are fleeing their home countries to seek refuge in neighboring nations where conditions are not much better.

Corruption prevents some aid from reaching the people who need it most. Bottom line: they need water, and they need food.

Let me put this more simply -- this is the problem. It’s easy to feel defeated by this. After all, we’re talking

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Kurtzig’s Return to Silicon Valley Highlights Women’s Lack Of Progress In Tech

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By Chris O’Brien (Business & Technology Columnist, San Jose Mercury News) Before Silicon Valley had Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs, it had Sandra Kurtzig. By founding and taking public one of the region's first software companies almost four decades ago, she became an industry giant. The fact that she was the valley's lone female tech CEO also made her a pioneer for women, too.

Kurtzig, 64, recently announced that she had come out of retirement to take the helm of a new startup, almost 40 years after starting ASK Corp. And perhaps her biggest surprise -- and disappointment -- is that as she looks back at that trail she blazed

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