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10 Reasons Why Networking is Better than Dating

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By Christina Gunarto (Strategic Alliances Manager, Smaato) What I get from my friends when I tell them I’m going to a networking event is “Oh, God, I hate those kinds of events”. I ask them why and the answer is always the same, regardless of whether they’re an extrovert, introvert, or somewhere in between -- They hate the awkward conversations about pretentious topics with strangers.

I've been going to a lot of tech industry events, conferences, and networking happy hours since being hired by a mobile advertising startup. Part of my job is to meet people from other companies and assess if there are opportunities

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Culture Kitchen Shares Ethnic Culinary Skills, from Stanford d.school to 500 Startups

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By Abby Sturges and Jennifer Lopez (Co-Founders, Culture Kitchen) We, Abby and Jennifer, are the co-founders of Culture Kitchen, and this is our journey from Masters Thesis project to a startup spreading culture through food. We didn’t think at that time we would become cofounders of a food and culture company, but seven months later decided to work together on our Masters Thesis project which would soon become Culture Kitchen.

We met the first day of graduate school orientation. Jennifer had a background in geography and jewelry design and Abby in industrial design and consulting. Our goals were similar

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Alexis Ringwald in Japan: Talking Cleantech, Women and Startups

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By Alexis Ringwald (Co-Founder, Valence Energy; acquired by Serious Energy) I stood in front of the auditorium at Tohoku University, Japan’s MIT, in Sendai —- a few miles from the epicenter of recent devastation. I was the first American embassy speaker to visit the region since the tragedy. It was hot, and I was sweating.

Nearly six months earlier, the U.S. Embassy in Japan had invited me, as a young female entrepreneur, to give a series of lectures to university and young professional audiences, particularly women, on “cleantech innovations and entrepreneurship.” This was before the country’s sudden impact by a natural disaster and concomitant nuclear leak at the Fukushima plant in March 2011.

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Become a Mentor with The Thiel Fellowship: 20 Under 20 Program

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By Danielle Strachman (Program Director, Thiel Fellowship: 20 Under 20) At the Thiel Foundation, we’re inspired by the difference that our Fellows want to make in the world. I am personally humbled by their projects and look forward to hearing about their latest innovations, hopes, and milestones while they travel down this new path.

Before accepting this opportunity, many Fellows were tracked to pursue their studies in universities and colleges. But now with the help of the Fellowship, they’re charting an independent course determined not by class credit or stale major requirements but by their ability to bring forth a vision on their own

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How Deal with Two Women Points to a Different Silicon Valley

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By Chris O’Brien (Business & Technology Columnist, San Jose Mercury News) Something happened last week in Silicon Valley that was remarkable simply because nothing about it was remarkable. Well, almost nothing. On Monday, a stealth startup announced it had raised $7.3 million from a prominent venture firm. The deal hinged on the long-term relationship between the founder, a serial entrepreneur, and a venture capitalist who has become a leading figure in e-commerce startups. They had worked together in the past and had become cornerstones of each other's networks over the past decade.

In other words, it's the kind of thing that happens every day in Silicon Valley -- except for one crucial detail: They're both women.

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5 Global Women’s Tech Entrepreneurship Journeys (August 25)

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By Francine Gordon (Chair, SVForum Tech Women) BayBrazil and SVForum Tech Women are featuring foreign-born women succeeding in Silicon Valley. The first program earlier this year highlighted a series of female business leaders from around the world. Side discussions revolved around the tradeoffs of having legally required quotas, such as those that have been imposed in some European countries and elsewhere.

This time, the focus is on young women who have become technology entrepreneurs. All of the founders on the "Global Women's Journey" panel on Thursday, August 25 in San Jose

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How to be a Tech Entrepreneur Without Knowing How to Program

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By Laura Forrest (Marketing Manager, Mozilla) Don't have a computer science degree? Don't worry.

Don't let that stop you from founding your own start-up. There are many examples of successful non-technical co-founders who didn't let the lack of knowing a programming language stop them from creating something great.

In this case study, we look at Victoria Ransom who co-founded Wildfire along with Alain Chuard in 2008. Together they took an idea and transformed it into a thriving venture-backed company 140 employees strong. Enter Victoria Ransom:

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Join Women-Led Startups at Tech Cocktail in Boston (September 1)

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By Jen Consalvo (Co-Editor & COO, Tech Cocktail) Back in May, I wrote a post for Women 2.0 about the importance of pitching your early stage startup. If you're in the New England area, I'd like to encourage you to apply to demo at the upcoming Tech Cocktail Boston mixer event at the Microsoft NERD center in Cambridge on September 1, 2011.

Looking for Women-Led Startups in Boston

Tech Cocktail is looking for 10-14 early stage startups to demo at the event in a casual expo style -- no formal pitches --

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Be Bigger: Lessons from The Big Enough Company

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By Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams (Founders, In Good Company) The blank canvas. When you start your own business you have the opportunity to do, create and decide whatever you want. That’s the most exciting (although sometimes scary) part of entrepreneurship.

This all leads to a tremendous and inspiring amount of diversity in the world of business. Not only does each entrepreneur have unique motivations but they also have different desired purposes, outcomes and goals. Each of us approaches entrepreneurship with a distinct philosophy and idea of what we must get

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Why Is It Important to Hire Women in Your Startup?

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By Cheryl Yeoh (Co-Founder & CEO, CityPockets) "It’s a numbers game. There are far fewer women in tech than men. So anyone genuinely interested in changing the ratio and evening out the balance, has to more than meet women halfway" -- Cindy Gallop in No One’s Blaming Anyone on WIMN’s Voices

The gender ratio and gender biases of the start-up community are long-standing topics of contention. But this piece isn’t about why there are so few women in tech, and it’s not about what it’s like being one of the few. Rather, I want to talk about why it even matters.

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Notes From the Classroom: Assisting Teaching High School Girls Ruby on Rails

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By Anna Billstrom (Developer, Momentus Media) I spent the day TA’ing for my friend’s class. Sarah Mei taught an Intro to Ruby class for 6 hours to 12 high school senior girls. They were in a 4-day intense engineering stay-away camp, that they’d done for four successive years. They take girls freshman year, and the same girls come back every year. This cartoon is from one of our feedback surveys.

Sarah managed to get the ratio of TA’s to girls approximately 1-3, which was awesome. I worked pretty closely with three young women. All of the TA’s were women, too, of different

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Top 5 Ways to Blow Your Startup’s Possible Patent Protection

Editor

By Heather N. Shafer (Intellectual Property Attorney, Independent) The surprised and dejected look on clients’ faces when we tell them their invention is no longer eligible for patent protection is not one a patent attorney likes to experience. The look morphs between a huge exhale to fuming red face with fists pounding the table and screams of “This can not be so, you must be wrong!” Each time I see this, I want to rent a blimp and have it travel the skies streaming information about the Top Five Ways to Blow Possible Patent Protection.

Since I cannot afford a blimp, here it is, plain and simple.

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Why Should Startups Try To Hire Women

Editor

By Jean Hsu (Android developer, Pulse) This gem of an article showed up in my Twitter stream this morning...and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Basically, Penelope Trunk explains why male founders shouldn't hire/work with women in startups. Diversity, she says, is a luxury that is great for large companies, but distracts from the focus that a small startup should have.

At first, I thought the article would be just a brain dump with a sensationalist title, like this other article about Why Women Shouldn't Attend Tech Conferences. But it wasn't.

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