Tag: women

Women doing STEM right

Hey, it’s important to me to recognize folks doing really good work, especially those who don’t usually get the recognition they deserve. My team and I have generated quite a few lists of women doing good work:

Recently, I asked my networks to contribute the women who impressed them, the folks in the STEM field who really have their boots on the ground. We got great responses, verified the women suggested, and have compiled a list (in no particular order) here:

1. Natasha Mohanty, Co-Founder, CTO, & VP of Technology at FEM inc.
Natasha joined FEM inc. from Google, where she was a lead engineer working on content recommendations and personalization for Google+ and Google News with a special emphasis on meeting the needs of women. Their efforts increased female engagement with Google+ by over 30%.

She has extensive experience in large-scale data mining to build user profiles through data. She received her A.B. from Mount Holyoke and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. When not hacking for FEM inc., she works on projects to get more women and girls interested in tech.

2. Limor Fried, Founder of Adafruit Industries
Adafruit was founded in 2005 by MIT engineer, Limor “Ladyada” Fried. Her goal was to create the best place online for learning electronics and making the best designed products for makers of all ages and skill levels. Adafruit has grown to over 50 employees in the heart of NYC with a 15,000+ sq ft. factory.

Adafruit has expanded offerings to include tools, equipment and electronics that Limor personally selects, tests and approves before going in to the Adafruit store. Limor was the first female engineer on the cover of WIRED magazine and was awarded Entrepreneur magazine’s Entrepreneur of the year.

3. Marianne Marck, Senior Vice President of Consumer Facing Technology at Starbucks
At Starbucks, Marianne leads the global retail and digital technology teams, the solution architecture and enterprise integration functions, and the technology teams for the China-Asia-Pacific region.

She joined Starbucks in 2011 as Vice President of Software Engineering, and led the enterprise software and application engineering function, including efforts for ERP, HRIS, web, mobile, enterprise QA, enterprise integration, and solution architecture. Prior to joining Starbucks, Marianne earned 22 years of tech experience developing solutions and platforms and building teams. Most recently at Blue Nile, she held the role of Senior Vice President of technology.

4. Bindu Reddy, CEO and Co-Founder of MyLikes
Before starting MyLikes, Bindu was at Google and oversaw product management for several products including Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Video and Blogger. When she first started at Google, Bindu was a Product Manager for AdWords, where she improved the AdWords bidding model by introducing Quality Based Bidding and Quality Score for keywords. She was also in charge of Google’s shopping engine – Google Product Search and designed and launched Google Base.

Before Google, Bindu founded AiYo – a shopping recommendations service. Earlier in her career, Bindu was the Director of Product Management at eLance and a Computational Biologist at Exelixis.

5. Edie Stern, a distinguished Engineer and Inventor at IBM
Edie has more than 100 patents to her name, and has been awarded the Kate Gleason Award for lifetime achievement. She received the award for the development of novel applications of new technologies. The 100 patents to her name represent her work in the worlds of telephony and the Internet, remote health monitoring, and digital media.

 6. Ellen Spertus, Research Scientist at Google & Computer Science Professor at Mills University

Ellen’s areas of focus are in structured information retrieval, online communities, gender in computer science, and social effects of computing. She was a core engineer of App Inventor for Android, which enables computing novices to create mobile apps. and she co-authored a book on App Inventor.

Ellen has been working to bring more women into computing for decades now. In 1991, while studying computer science at MIT, she published a paper titled, “Why are there so few Female Computer Scientists.” And Ellen tells girls: “I’m sorry to tell you that Hogwarts isn’t real — but MIT is.”

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Thanks to everyone who contributed, and please, keep ’em coming!

6 Impressive Women in Engineering

It’s important to acknowledge and support the people on the backend doing good work. Too often, women engineers get little to no acknowledgement for the work they’re doing. As a nerd, it’s my philosophy that everyone gets a fair chance to be heard. It’s one of the reasons I started craigconnects.org.

My team and I have compiled a list of women in engineering who are the real deal. These women work and build the companies that many of us use every single day, but you may have never heard of them. This is a selection that people don’t hear enough about, as opposed to the notoriety that some others get. I’d like to challenge you to check out the work that these women are doing.

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1. Holly Liu, Cofounder and Chief of Staff at Kabam

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Kabam is the leader in the western world for free-to-play core games. Holly also oversees Kabam’s corporate culture as head of People Operations (“People Ops”), which is responsible for driving Kabam’s vision, mission, and values for its more than 800 employees in offices around the world. Holly has helped build a world-class human resources team that is responsible for recruiting and retaining top talent and has grown Kabam’s personnel base by 500% in three years.

Holly was named to Forbes’ “Top 10 Women Entrepreneurs to Watch” in 2013 and one of Fortune’s “10 Most Powerful Women in Gaming.”

2. Avni Shah, Director of Product Management at Google

Avni is in charge of Chrome development at Google. She was one of two women to present at Google’s recent developer’s conference I/O. During her presentation, Avni introduced the new version of Chrome coming in the next Android update dubbed Android L.

3. Nadine Harik, Engineering Manager at Pinterest

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Before joining the Pinterest team, Nadine was at Google overseeing the Web and mobile Web teams

When Nadine first started working the the tech field, she described how quickly she became tired of explaining her role at the tech companies she worked for to strangers who assumed she was in HR or community management.

“Now,” Nadine says, “I tend to always preface with, ‘I work at Pinterest and I’m an engineer at Pinterest.'”

4. Merline Saintil, Head of Global Engineering Operations at Yahoo, and Advisor for EngageClick

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Merline is an international technology executive, business advisor, and operations expert, having distinguished herself as a leader in fast growing sectors of cloud computing, mobile, online payments and commerce. She has been involved in the process of creating software as well as managing global teams to produce world-class products in a variety of positions at Sun Microsystems, Adobe, PayPal and Joyent, Inc.

Merline currently serves on the Strategic Development Board and co-leads the COO C-Suite of Watermark (leading organization for Executive Women).

Outside of her business interests, Merline said she’s advising Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (CA-18) on the first mobile app challenge for high school students sponsored by the U.S. House of Representatives. She has a passion for mentoring, investing, supporting women in technology

5. Ruchi Sanghvi, Head of Operations at Dropbox

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Prior to joining Dropbox, Sanghvi served as the co-founder and CEO of Cove, a collaboration, coordination and communication product for organizations and communities.

Sanghvi holds the distinction of being the first female engineer at Facebook and was instrumental in implementing the first versions of key features such as News Feed. She then led product management and strategy for Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect. She was also responsible for core product areas such as privacy and user engagement.

The BBC asked Ruchi what it was like to be the first female engineer at Facebook? She said she “‘was used to being in a minority: at engineering school, she was one of the five female students in a class of 150.’

But at Facebook, she says, she truly came into her own.

‘You had to be opinionated, you had to make sure your point of view was heard, you had to ask questions. Sometimes people would tell you were stupid and you’d start all over again,'” she said.

6.  Hilary Mason, Founder and Chief Executive at Fast Forward Labs

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Before founding Fast Forward Labs, Hilary was chief scientist at link-shortening company Bitly for almost four years and more recently worked part-time for Accel Partners as a data scientist in residence.

A subscription to Fast Forward Labs includes quarterly R&D reports, prototypes, innovation events, and an ongoing dialogue with their team on the topics of innovation and near future technologies.

Hopefully you learned about someone new, and maybe started following that person. I’d appreciate it if you left a comment with someone you’d like to see in a 2.0 version of this list. My team and I would like to hear from you about some women in engineering who really have their boots on the ground. Thanks!

Why Men Must “Lean In” to Support Women’s Leadership

Our times call for  some innovators and women leaders who work in partnership with men. Again, this is about my commitment to fairness.

Basically, it’s time we get more women into public office. I recorded this video about fairness and getting better government everywhere, maybe indulge me? It’s about creating real social change, for the better.

I’ve joined up with the Women In Public Service Project to play my part. I’m working with them to host a call to action to champions of change around the world. You can be a part of this movement, too…

(I also recorded a video about how to use social media better, for equality. Maybe it’ll help ya out.)

 

6 Inspirational Women In Tech

Hey, it’s a priority of mine to promote the work that good people are doing.

A lot of times women don’t get the recognition they deserve in the tech industry. In the last  few blog posts I’ve shared about really good women in tech, we asked folks to suggest women they thought really had their boots on the ground.

My team (which includes Justyn Hintze of Rad Campaign and Allyson Kapin, Founder of Women Who Tech and Rad Campaign) and I researched your suggestions, and created a list of 6 women (or orgs run for women, by women) who are doing tech right. You should follow and support these women, if you’re able.

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J. Kelly Hoey, @jkhoey, is a strategist, speaker, startup board member and angel investor focused on social/digital and the human motivations which fuel innovation. A connection-maker, networking strategist and expert community builder, Kelly is known for her leadership in building valuable professional networks, understanding the dynamics of engaged communities and the “how” of raising visibility, online and off.

Women Who Hack, @WomenWhoHack, are casual get togethers for women who want to hack on projects with or around other women. All types of projects (software and hardware), languages, platforms and experience levels are welcome. Their goal is to support local women hackers (and aspiring hackers) by providing a safe, welcoming environment in which they can connect with and learn from each other. They’re based in Portland, OR.

Kimberly Scott, @COMPUGIRLS, is the Founder of COMPUGIRLS, a culturally responsive technology program for adolescent (ages 13-18) girls from under-resourced school districts in Phoenix and Colorado. Kimberly is also Associate Professor of Women and Gender studies at Arizona State University and an Affiliate Faculty in George Mason University’s Center for Digital Media Innovation and Diversity.

Lizelle van Vuuren, @lizellevv, recently Co-Founded StartupDenver and a monthly event called Women Who Startup which empowers Colorado entrepreneurs with the resources they need most. Lizelle believes that entrepreneurship is the key to solving the World’s biggest problems. She seeks to work with mindful people who she can learn from, and work with on new ideas, solutions, products or services that create change, improve people’s lives and makes a difference.

The Next Women, @thenextwomen, is a community of Investors, Entrepreneurs & Advisers. They build formats to support the growth of female entrepreneurs -from startups to companies making millions. They provide access to capital, resources and networks, offering our community a support infrastructure critical for success.

Jennifer Shaw, @missjennshaw, Founder of New York Tech Women and Bella Minds. @NYTechWomen helps women in tech make meaningful connections. @BellaMinds bridges the gap between urban tech centers and educated women of rural America. They empower all women to take control of their careers.

Hey, these are a few of the blog posts we pulled your suggestions from:

Please comment with your suggestions of other women in tech who are the real deal. Thanks!

5 Reasons We Need Social Change

Folks, I started this craigconnects thing because I really want to use tech to give a real voice to the voiceless, and real power to the powerless. Ever justicesince starting craigconnects, I’ve created a list of issues areas that I’m really focusing on. It’s important that we work together, as a community, and collaborate to create real social change. You can’t change the world from the top down.

Here are just 5 (of many) reasons we need social change:

  1. We seem to throw money into food and housing, yet a lot of folks are still in need, so something isn’t working right. This includes military families and veterans. We need to do it better.
  2. We need to improve the reentry experience of war veterans into the American economy and society. Less than 1% of Americans currently serve in the military, so this is a really important conversation to have. The conversation has already been started, we just need to keep collaborating and working toward our goals.
  3. Journalism Ethics. We need to ensure that journalism fulfills its role as the heart of democracy and its mission of seeking truth and building trust. The press should be the immune system of democracy. Turns out that what we have now are a lot of ethics codes and policies, but very little accountability. This is something I often discuss when I talk about trustworthy journalism in a fact-checking-free world. And this is also why I joined the board of Poynter, and work with the Columbia Journalism Review, Center for Public Integrity, and Sunlight Foundation.
  4. There are some real bad actors out there trying to implement laws to stop eligible people, including women, the elderly, and disenfranchised communities, from voting. What I learned in high school civics class is that an attack on voting rights is virtually the same as an attack on the country. We need to step up and remind folks that the Founders of the US tell us that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, meaning that citizens have the right to vote. And we need to protect that right.
  5. Today, women represent 12% of all computer science graduates. In 1984, they represented 37%. This number should be increasing, and we can change that. It’s important that we encourage girls and women to get involved in tech. Here’s more on the importance of girls in tech.

Personally, I’m a nerd, and feel that life should be fair, that everyone gets a chance to be heard, and maybe to help run things. Sure, life isn’t fair, but that won’t slow me down. A nerd’s gotta do what a nerd’s gotta do.

Note to self: JUST LISTEN. That is, don’t ALWAYS attempt to solve the problem, SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED TO LISTEN. (Courtesy of  “You Just Don’t Understand” by Deborah Tannen.)

Just a few more days to help out America’s heroes

Hey, there are just a few days left in Veterans Charity Challenge 2 and we’re raising money to help out folks who are risking their lives for us, and their families. We need your help. I figure, the least we can do is give back. These charities do some really innovative work to support vets, and other American heroes.

If you want to help these orgs out that’re supporting veterans, police officers, military families, and firefighters, now’s your chance to give to the nonprofit of your choice. Over $225,700 has already been raised for causes that are the real deal, but with the important work they’re doing, they can use as much help as we’re able to give.

so far

Folks, a few reasons you should support this Challenge:

  • All money raised goes directly to organizations supporting veterans, military families, police, and firefighters.
  • The participating nonprofits are doing good work, for example:
    • Some orgs are helping to take care of military member’s pets,
    • Others provide educational and employment services to vets who face economic hardship,
    • A few are raising the money to provide scholarships to kids of milfams,
    • Others train service dogs for returning veterans,
    • Some of the money raised will go toward providing mentors to women vets looking for jobs,
    • And a few orgs are providing books overseas. There’s so many more causes you can give to over on CrowdRise, too.
  • With your support, these organizations will have the opportunity to win the prize money awarded to first ($20k), second ($10k), and third place ($5k). But, hey, please remember that even if the org you support doesn’t end up coming in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, they’ll still keep all the money they raise.

Email CrowdRise with all questions and they’ll be ready with great customer service.

7 Brilliant Women in Tech

Hey, there are some women in the tech sector who really get stuff done. My team and I really wanted to highlight some disruptors who we haven’t featured before. They’re the real deal.

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  1. Susan Buck, Co-Founder of The Women’s Coding Collective

    A programmer, designer, and educator with over 15 years of web development experience, Susan began her education in digital media at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunication Program and UNC Asheville’s Multimedia Arts and Sciences program.Susan co-founded The Women’s Coding Collective (WCC), an educational initiative aimed at helping more women excel in programming and web development.While working on the WCC, Susan also teaches web development at the Harvard Extension School. From 2007-2012, Susan was the senior developer with San Francisco-based Photojojo where she built and maintained an ecommerce platform.
  2. Brigitte Daniel, Executive Vice President of Wilco Electronics Systems, Inc.

    // For over 30 years, Wilco has provided affordable cable and technology services to low-income communities as well as commercial, governmental, and educational institutions, in Philadelphia. As edIQ’s new CEO, Brigitte will address the challenges in urban education and specific underserved student educational needs through the offering of an “educational technology kit” that includes an affordable mobile devices and specialized educational content from established and unique content providers.Brigitte received a 2011 Eisenhower Fellowship where she traveled to India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia to explore and cultivate global relationships in developing emerging technologies that benefit Wilco’s unique low-income marketplace in Philadelphia.In addition, these initiatives led to Brigitte being re-appointed to the Federal Communications Commission Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age.
  3. Lis Pardi, Founder of LadyNegotiator.com

    // Lis founded LadyNegotiator.com as an online resource for women preparing for negotiations. She also works on interfaces for healthcare, games, retailers, and libraries, and is the Treasurer for PhillyCHI, an interdisciplinary academic and professional group interested in human-computer interaction, user experience, usability, and other related disciplines.
  4. Rebecca Miller-Webster, Founder and co-organizer of Write/Speak/Code

    // Write/Speak/Code’s a conference teaching women developers the skills to become thought leaders, conference speakers, and open source contributors. Rebecca’s active in the Ruby community as a speaker, open source contributor, and co-organizer of the Gotham Ruby Conference.    Rebecca is currently a teacher at Dev Bootcamp, and spent the last 10 years building software in a variety of languages for large corporations, non-profits, and start-ups, including as VP of Engineering for an early-stage start up in NYC. Rebecca also co-organizes GORUCO and makes Patterned.
  5. Zakiya Harris, Co-founder of Hack The Hood, Impact Hub Oakland, Grind for the Green, and Earthseed Consulting

    //     Zakiya is a social change strategist, artist and educator. She works at the intersection of entrepreneurship, environmental education & creative transformation.Hack the Hood provides training in multimedia and tech skills to youth who then work on real-world consulting projects with locally-owned businesses and non-profits.The organization recently won a $500,000 grant through the Google Bay Area Impact Challenge.
  6. Rebecca Braglio, Founder of ThePhillyDog.com

    //     When it came to dog owners and the dog service provider community, Rebecca saw that there was a huge disconnect. It occurred to her one day that Philadelphia needed a website that people could visit to find out where they could take their dog, what to do with their dog on the weekend, where the dog parks were, what fundraising events were going on…just a “one-stop-shop” kind of place to get information, and ThePhillyDog was born.ThePhillyDog.com has been recognized as a “Top 20 Dog Sites” in 2009 and 2012, and is a Top 100 Winner of the Start-Up Nation “Savvy in Social Media” award for building rapport and relationships in the community.
  7. Rashmi Sinha, CEO & Co-Founder of SlideShare

    // Rashmi focuses on product strategy and design. She has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuropsychology from Brown University, and conducted research on search engines and recommender systems at U.C. Berkeley.Before SlideShare, Rashmi co-founded user experience consulting company Uzanto, and built MindCanvas, a game-like software.

Be sure and also check out 10 Women Run Startups You Should Know

Who would you add to this list?

New Poll Shows The Rise Of Online Harassment

Hey folks, real important stuff: almost 50% of Americans under the age of 35 have been bullied, harassed or threatened online, or know someone who has, according to a new poll published today.

You may not be surprised to discover that women are targeted more often than men, and Facebook’s by far the most common forum for harassment.

The poll, released by Rad Campaign, Lincoln Park Strategies and myself, shows that harassment’s a problem across populations, affecting 25% of all Americans. And when looking at folks under 35, the number shoots up to 47%. Rad Campaign’s taken the data and broken it up into an infographic.

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Here’s some important findings from the poll:

  • Women report being personally harassed much more frequently than men – the gender gap’s 57% women to 43% men across all age groups.
  • Sexual harassment’s the most common form of harassment – 44% of all incidences), followed by:
    • Slurs on a person’s professional ability (28%),
    • Racial (23%),
    • Religious (18%),
    • and Political (16%) insults.
  • Surprisingly, the level of sexual harassment’s virtually identical between men (44%) and women (43%).
  • 62% of respondents who said they’d been harassed online said it happened on Facebook. And, Twitter came in second at 24%.
  • The poll found significant effects of the harassment, including people who said they were scared for their life (29% of those harassed) and were afraid to leave their house (20%).
  • More than 2/3 of those harassed online said they knew their harasser in real life. And in those under 35 , that number rose to 72%.

“Some people may think the Internet is a place where they can threaten people without consequences, but online harassment has horrifying real-life effects,” said Allyson Kapin, co-founder of Rad Campaign.

“These poll results show the need for effective responses to the problem at all levels.”

Strangely enough, the poll shows that in only 25% of cases users reported harassment to the social networks where it happened, yet the social networks themselves appear to react when called upon– in 61% of cases, according to the poll, the network shut down the offender’s account.

“The high levels of harassment reported by those under 35, show that this problem will likely continue to grow out of control if not addressed,” said Stefan Hankin, President of Lincoln Park Strategies. “The results from this poll, especially surrounding the long reaction times to reported cases of harassment, point to a need for the social media sites, law enforcement, and us as individuals to start taking this issue more seriously.”

And I agree, the first step toward dealing with unacceptable behavior, understand the problem, then we can get rid of it.

To view the rest of the findings, visit: www.OnlineHarassmentData.org. The data and some solutions to the problem will also be discussed at the Personal Democracy Forum panel: Sex, Lies, and the Internet, beginning at 2pm ET on Thursday, June 6 with Allyson Kapin.

What works for you to stop online harassment, bullying, and threats? More to come…

These results are based on a survey of 1,007 Americans over 18 conducted online from May 20-22, 2014. Margin of error is approximately ±3.09% at the 95% confidence level.

 

5 women bloggers you really need to follow

Hey, I don’t think women are noted frequently enough for their accomplishments. Women dominate social media and have a huge impact in the blogosphere, but aren’t always recognized.

My team and I compiled a list of women bloggers who are the real deal. You should follow these folks on Twitter, and check out their blogs. These women are on top of of the latest tech news, nonprofit strategies, and social media trends.

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5 Women Bloggers to Follow:

Xeni Jardin is an editor and blogger for Boing Boing, a web zine they describe as being “devoted to the weird, wonderful and wicked things to be found in technology and culture.” Independent for nearly 25 years, they publish a daily mix of short articles, long features, and video productions.


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Beth Kanter is the author of Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media, one of the longest running and most popular blogs for nonprofits. Beth has over 30 years working in the nonprofit sector in technology, training, capacity building, evaluation, fundraising, and marketing.


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Shelly Kramer blogs about internet marketing, social media, and tech at V3, a full service integrated marketing, digital communications and social media agency.


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Kara Swisher is co-CEO of Revere Digital, co-executive editor and blogger for Re/code, and co-executive producer of The Code Conference. Re/code is an independent tech news, reviews and analysis site. Because everything in tech and media is constantly being rethought, refreshed, and renewed, Re/code’s aim is to reimagine tech journalism.


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Amy Vernon is the author of Dear Amy. Amy is among the top 15 contributors of all time on Digg.com (and the highest-ranked female ever), and is recognized for her knowledge of writing, community, and social media.


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Who would you add to this list? What women bloggers do you have bookmarked on your reading list?//

6 Women Who Are Disrupting the Startup World With Social Change

Folks, my team and I have compiled a list of 6 women who are really disrupting the startup world with social change. These women are in no particular order, but are listed here because their work is admirable, and they really have their boots on the ground, working to make a real difference.

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Grace Garey: Co-founder, Watsi


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Watsi is a Kickstarter-like website for medical treatments. Web visitors can go to the website, donate as little as $5, and 100% of that donation will directly fund medical care for a specific person somewhere in the world.

Grace says she’s “obsessed with the idea that connecting people can solve the world’s biggest problems.” She studied global development and politics in Santa Barbara, did refugee research in Ghana, worked at a hospital in India, and suited up to do humanitarian advocacy in DC before deciding that everyday people were actually the most powerful change agents the world had to offer. Now, she gets to spend her time connecting people from across the world and watching them change each other’s lives.

Rose Broome, Co-founder and CEO, HandUp


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HandUp is a tech startup with a social mission. They’ve created a new way to donate directly to homeless people and people in need here in the US. Starting in San Francisco, they’ve partnered with Project Homeless Connect to help deliver new resources to the thousands of homeless and at risk people in the community.

Rose is passionate about using the power of data and technology to create positive social change. She believes we already have the tools, knowledge, and desire to create a better world, so let’s just do it! Rose started the SF Homeless Innovation Meetup to help bridge the gap between new technologies and the complex problem of homelessness. She’s also an organizer for Science Hack Day and works as a data science & research consultant for organizations, including SuperBetter Labs.

Servane Mouazan: Founder, Oguntê


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Servane says, “I love helping women social innovators to be more influential and better connected.” Servane founded UK-based Oguntê and the Global Tribal Network, to prove that women can solve pressing social & environmental issues and create commercial opportunities at the same time, when given more skills and space to do so. “Being part of an ecosystem where everybody is included, can contribute and support others, is the highlight and the mission of [Oguntê ]. My drive is about supporting, connecting and promoting women who work in social enterprises, networks and campaigns, and contribute to making the world a better and more equitable place.”

Oguntê believes in social impact made by women. Influential and connected women with bold solutions to social and environmental issues, can create sustainable opportunities to make the world a better place. Influential and connected women are more likely to be listened to and valued as civic, political and economic citizens.

Joelle Berdugo Adler: Partner, President, and CEO, Industrial Revolution II


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(We couldn’t find a Twitter handle for Joanne personally…)

Besides being the President and CEO of Diesel Canada Inc and the Founder of the ONEXONE Charitable Foundation, Joelle is one of the founding partners and chairs of Industrial Revolution II. Industrial Revolution II is a different kind of garment factory.

They explain that, “Social advancement for our workers, their families and our neighbors is equally as important to us as delivering our customers the highest quality products and services. Our ‘shared value’ business model embraces the idea that not all profit is created equal. Profits involving a social purpose represent a higher form of capitalism, one that creates a positive cycle of company and community prosperity.”

Anna Sidana: Founder and CEO, One Million Lights


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(We couldn’t find a Twitter handle for Anna personally…)

Anna has spent her professional life in high technology companies with careers ranging from marketing to business management. She currently works full time at Silicon Valley startups in marketing. Prior to that, she was at PayPal in San Jose as Director, Financial Products focused on Credit products.

Anna is also the founder of One Million Lights, an organization that distributes safe, rechargeable solar lights around the world, replacing dangerous and polluting kerosene lamps. While the organization is setup as a nonprofit, they have evolved into a more of an ‘entrepreneur’ based business model where donations are only a part of their business model to subsidize the price of a solar light to a level that is affordable in remote regions of the world. Their goal is to create a sustainable supply chain that can reach the people who need this the most. The retail price of a solar lights ranges from $25 – $50 and often that is too high for a family living at subsistence level. In most regions where the lights are delivered, the families live on less than $2-$5 per day.

Meg Wirth: Co-Founder, Matnernova


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(We couldn’t find a Twitter handle for Meg personally…)

Matnernova is an Amazon-type platform, but for global health technologies. They link doctors and midwives with low-cost medical supplies to use overseas. Meg Wirth is not only the co-founder of Maternova, but also a S.E.VEN fellow and a Cartier Women’s Initiative finalist. She was named one of America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs of 2011 by Bloomberg Businessweek.

Meg has worked on women’s health throughout her career in areas as diverse as starting a home visiting program for teen mothers in Appalachia to monitoring and evaluating a major Safe Motherhood initiative–funded by USAID and implemented by John Snow International’s Mothercare project– in Jakarta and South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Meg has also worked as a member of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Health Equity team and co-edited a major volume called Challenging Inequities in Health: From Ethics to Action. She was a co-author of the UN Millennium Project’s final report on child and maternal health.

 

Who would you add to this list? I’d like to hear who you’ve seen disrupt the startup world with social change, and maybe you’ll inspire a 2.0 list. Thanks!

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