Internet Heroes
When it comes to women in technology, Gina Bianchini is among the most respected in the field and someone I greatly admire. I met Gina in New York last fall.
Gina is the co-founder of Ning, the largest social platform for interests and passions in the world today. She ran the company as CEO from its inception to March 2010.
On the day she left, Ning had 2.3 million Ning Networks created, 300,000 monthly active Ning Networks, 46 million registered users and touched 90 million unique people per month.
Video Interviews with Sheryl Sandberg, Meg Whitman & Other Female Heroes: The Women Who Make America
AOL and PBS last week launched "Makers: Women Who Make America" a digital video and broadcast initiative to showcase a collection of stories from women who helped shape the women's movement in the United States.
The multi-platform Makers project includes profiles of Female Internet Heroes such as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman and social software entrepreneur Gina Bianchini, amongst other women who have sparked change and paved the way for others in fields such as politics, arts, science and sports.
Female Internet Hero Andiara Petterle is an experienced entrepreneur in the Brazilian digital market.
Currently Digital Strategy and New Business Director at Grupo RBS and previously CEO Bolsa de Mulher, the largest online women's communications group in Brazil.
Andiara
has MA and BA degrees in Social Communications from PUC-Rio, was a
guest researcher at Brown University, studied Interactive Media
Development at the University of British Columbia, and participated in
the Women's Leadership Program at Harvard Business School. She is
co-author of the book "Poderosas Consumidoras: o que quer e pensa a nova
mulher brasileira".
We spoke to Andiarra about how to target women through digital media; the most common piece of advice she gives to start-ups; and how her journey in tech started on her 15th birthday.
The
UK’s largest female business community, everywoman, has announced the
2012 finalists in the everywoman in Technology Awards, once
again uncovering the UK’s most successful and talented
women working within the technology sector. And our own founder Simone Brummelhuis of The NextWomen is again part of the jury.
These
awards, now in their second year, highlight the achievements of women excelling
in this industry, in order to encourage more to see it as a rewarding career
choice.
Despite increases in the number of women entering the workforce over the past few decades, recent figures show that the number employed within the IT and telecoms sector has decreased. Although 47% of the UK workforce is female, only 18% of IT & Telecoms professionals are female, down from 22% in 2001*.
Most of Facebook Inc. (FB)’s more than 800 million users
are women. You wouldn’t know it from looking at the board, whose seven directors are all men.
The disconnect puts the social-media company at odds with others in the industry that have at least one female director, including LinkedIn Corp. and Google Inc., and from most big public companies in the U.S.
Just 11.3 percent of the Fortune 500 had male-only boards last year, according to Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit that researches women and business issues.
“We’re long past having to defend or explain why women should be on boards, given all the data that shows how companies with female as well as male directors perform better,”
said Anne Mulcahy, former chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corp. and a director at Johnson & Johnson Co., Target Corp. and Washington Post Co. “It’s unfortunate when companies with a large percentage of women constituents don’t reflect that in their boardrooms.”
Moonfruit.com, the UK’s largest
DIY website builder, is one of the first businesses selected to take part in a
major new campaign by the UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. The
campaign is aimed at inspiring people to start or grow their own business.
Based on the concept that there is "a business in everyone" and that all businesses can realise their ambitions, the campaign, launched by the Prime Minister in Yorkshire last week, sees the Government and the private sector coming together to highlight the support available to small firms and budding entrepreneurs.
Arianna Huffington received the Aenne Burda Award, which recognizes
visionary female entrepreneurs, at the international digital conference DLD in
Munich last week.
Huffington, the founder and editor-in-chief of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group, tweeted her excitement at receiving the award . It was presented by Dr. Maria Furtwängler-Burda, who praised Huffington as an example of female empowerment. She said,
"Arianna Huffington experienced backstrokes and was never deterred by them –- her fearlessness is a stimulus for women, to get active themselves."
Chris Shipley is dedicated to the success
of technology entrepreneurs, focusing on identifying market opportunities and
building value into the most promising young companies. She was the executive
producer of the renowned DEMO Conference from 1996 until September 2009. Chris
has identified and helped bring to market more than 1,500 products, including
WebEx, VMWare, salesforce.com, TiVo, Xfire, Ribbit, and Ironport.
She has covered personal technology since 1984 and has worked as a writer and editor for a variety of technology and consumer media, winning numerous awards for her writing and often has been cited as a leading influencer. She served on the board and past chairman of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives (now called Watermark) and is a board member or advisor to a number of early stage companies.
Her current venture Guidewire Group is a global market intelligence and advisory firm passionate about technology entrepreneurship. Its exclusive focus on early-stage companies and emerging technology markets drives insight and opportunity to its clients and community.
Can you elaborate a bit on: "How did you fund it, with how much money, and what is the business model? This is for a lot of people great to read, how you did it, what route you chose, which hurdles etc. as for many this is a thing to consider when starting out. Also, on how you are dealing with the growth is interesting.
This is what I asked Charlotte Semler-West, serial entrepreneur and founder of Charlotte & Co, and prior thereto, founder of Myla. She replied:
I chose the fund the business start-up myself. I had previously founded and run a VC backed business start-up and I really didn’t want to go that way again. I can say the following….(probably more than you wanted!!!) (see further down in the interview, ed. SGB)
As we reported recently the UK’s number one DIY
website builder, Moonfruit, has partnered with PayPal to launch ShopBuilder – an
“out-of-the-box” e-commerce solution that lets traders sell instantly and
everywhere, through the global channels of the web, mobile and social media.
We spoke to Moonfruit Founder & CEO Wendy Tan-White about Shopbuilder, what's next for Moonfruit and her predictions for the big startup trends of 2012.
Which features or aspects of ShopBuilder are you most excited about?
It’s the multichannel publishing that really has me excited. By that we mean that every shop built with ShopBuilder can sell their products immediately on the web, on mobile and through Facebook, without having to create three different versions of their site, we do that for them.
Upcoming Events
21 May 2012 - 09:00 - 23 May 2012 - 19:30New York, US
22 May 2012 - 09:30 - 24 May 2012 - 19:00Astana, Kazakhstan
