Following a career path of politics lead to High-tech
941_ 12/13/10- Today she is the mother of two children under four and runs two companies. Lee Kennedy, Founder, Bolder Search and board member for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network spoke with Amanda Steinberg, CEO and co-founder of Soapbxx & Dailyworth. Amanda started with an overview of her two companies. Soapbxx is a website consultancy most specifically focused on online fundraising and marketing strategies for non-profit organizations." DailyWorth.com is a long time dream coming to fruition for Amanda. "DailyWorth is very simple actually; it's a free daily email that teaches women about basic finance. We currently serve 50,000 members and it is growing quite rapidly." When asked about how she got interested in Technology, Amanda talked about her mother who in 1964 was probably the only woman in her class majoring in math and computer science. While most four year olds were doing arts and crafts, Amanda's mother plunked her down in front of a computer. Later, Amanda was actually following a career path of politics. In college she got an administrative position where she graduated into doing VB scripting for databases and just fell in love with technology and realized her brain actually works like this and decided this would be her career. Larry said, "Lucy Sanders likes us to ask this question. "Why are you an entrepreneur?" "Ahh, how could I not be an entrepreneur?" Because she's able to generate business and because she does have certain leadership attributes, she has to be an entrepreneur, it's just not a choice for her. There's much more, listen now...
Related Links: DailyWorth || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Amanda Steinberg, DailyWorth.com, Soapbxx, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Bolder Search, ACLU, Entrepreneurs, Technology - 12/13/10 Bytes: 15575983 LISTEN to Amanda Steinberg, CEO, Soapbxx and CEO DailyWorth.com

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Interactive content for today’s digital kids
917_ 10/25/10- Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network and Lee Kennedy, Founder, BolderSearch.com and NCWIT board member interviewed Asra Rasheed, CEO of RRKidz. This is part of a series of interviews that we are having with fabulous entrepreneurs. Women who have started “IT” companies in a variety of sectors, all of whom have just fabulous stories to tell us, about being entrepreneurs. RRKidz develops and publishes engaging, educational interactive content for today’s digital kids. Curated by Reading Rainbow’s, LeVar Burton, RRKidz brings learning and skill based experiences to children within a safe social environment online and on handheld devices. Asra is an industry executive and accomplished entrepreneur. She possesses extensive experience in interactive media, entertainment, video games, online and offline business strategies and operations. When Asra was asked to define the qualities necessary to be a successful entrepreneur she was very straightforward. She said, "Be committed; Be passionate; Strategize; Have a roadmap; Be driven; Be balanced; Build relationships a network." It's easy to see why she enjoys advising companies. She possesses extensive experience in interactive media, entertainment, videogames, online and offline business strategies and operations. Recently, Asra was President of Thumb Media Group; content publishing platform for mobile and tablet devices. Previously, Asra was President and COO of Gottaplay Interactive, an online videogame rental service; aka: Netflix for games. Prior to that, she was Founder and Director of Interactive Media at Koyo Graphic International where she worked on creating online and interactive experiences for companies such as Bandai Entertainment, Warner Bros., Sanyo, and others." Listen now, there's much more...
Related Links: Asra Rasheed on Twitter || NCWIT Share || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Asra Rasheed, RRKidz, Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton, Lucinda Sanders, National Center for Women in Technology, NCWIT, Entrepreneurs, Lee Kennedy
10/25/10 Bytes: 14346765 LISTEN to Asra Rasheed, CEO, RRKidz

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Inspired by Bill Gates, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina
890_ 10/18/10- Larry Nelson and Lee Kennedy, interviewed Saman Dias, an award-winning entrepreneur who recognized the value of enterprise-scale business technical training when she founded AIM Computer Training... the global company was acquired in 2004 and Saman went on to lead other successful entrepreneurial efforts in real estate and social networking. She is currently staying quite busy as an advisor to entrepreneurs at different companies, including Astia's incubator. This interview is part of NCWIT's (National Center for Women in Technology) interview series with fabulous, successful women entrepreneurs who have started IT companies. Originally from Sri Lanka, Saman studied to become a doctor and was preparing to take the entrance exam for medical college. But she had a hard time passing the entrance exam. Saman was frustrated, she felt as though her sisters would be going into college and she'd still be studying to take the entrance exam. Her uncle came to her and said, 'what about computers'? Saman said, "I had no idea what it meant, it was early in the 1980s, but I said, sign me up. And that's how I got into technology." Lee, founder of BolderSearch and NCWIT board member, asked why did she become an entrepreneur? Entrepreneurs will really relate to her reply. "Because, I feel that you can create your own destiny, it gives you the independence and the opportunity to create wealth and be your own boss, I loved that. Looking back, I feel that your contribution really can make a difference not only for yourself, but to the community, the company and from there you make a difference to the world because you are helping to create wealth and jobs and helping to create new innovation." There's much more advice for entrepreneurs as she talks about as Bill Gates, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina...
Related Links: Saman Dias Linkedin || Astia || NCWIT Share || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Saman Dias, National Center for Women in Technology, NCWIT, Astia, Entrepreneurs, AIM Computer Training, Lee Kennedy, Independence 10/18/10 bytes: 9093332
Listen to: Saman Dias

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Amazing story: Boulder to Disney
871_ 8/2/10- Lucy Sanders, Founder and CEO of the National Center for Women in Technology describes Krista Marks as, "A rare blend of technical accomplishment and social passion and entrepreneurial spirit. You cannot spend more than five seconds with Krista without getting all kinds of great information and energy and passion!" Krista is the co-founder of Kerpoof Studios which was acquired by Disney in 2008 and Krista is now the general manager of Disney Online Kerpoof Studios (and still based in Boulder). Lucy asked, "How did you get interested in technology?" Her interesting reply, "My entry into technology was not so smooth. When I went to college, I didn't even know about technology or pursuing a career in technology which for me, was electrical engineering. [But obviously there are a number of careers in technology.] For me, in high school, I gravitated to mathematics, science and problem solving, these were the areas I liked. Fortunately when I got to orientation for college, I sat next to a student who said they were going to major in electrical engineering. I didn't know what that is. "What is that?" And she said, 'I know that if you really like math and physics, it's the best major to have. I said, "Oh my god, those are my two favorite things. "So I fell into it. This is why NCWIT and the things you're doing, Lucy, is so critical, so important. I would like every student to be aware of the available opportunities when they're choosing a career. I did end up there and loved technology. In fact, from that point on I really wanted to be involved in designing technology. I spent the first eleven years designing custom electronics, and got to work around the world." In the first of many future integrations of Kerpoof technology, Disney.com has launched new features on its popular Characters portal (www.Disney.com/Characters). Now, when guests visit pages for characters such as Mickey and Friends, they will be able to create their very own customized pictures using an intuitive graphical interface. There's more...
Related Links: Disney Online Kerpoof Studio || Disney || Characters Portal || NCWIT Share || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Krista Marks, Keerpoof, Studios, Disney, Digital Mosaic, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women in Technology, NCWIT, Disney Online 8/2/10 Chnl: NCWIT bytes: 3693508
Listen to: Krista Marks, General Manager, Disney Online Kerpoof Studios

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852_ 6/1/10 - History of a successful female entrepreneur
Does this sound like an entrepreneur: Someone who is optimistic; likes people; likes helping people; likes networking; likes to start things? Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network interviewed Margaret Burd. Margaret is a founder, President & CEO of Magpie, Inc., a software company that offers a full suite of software development and consulting services for the Smart Energy, Telecom, and Healthcare industries. Margaret also is a founder and board chair of Magpie Healthcare, Inc., a software product company that provides hospital caregivers with simple, phone-based solutions for people-to-people and team communications that save lives by measurably improving quality of care. Margaret came to technology in a rather unusual way. Her first career was teaching math and science and coaching lots of different sports in public school in Missouri, for about nine years. In 1983 she was still earning $15,000/year and was pretty bored with the teaching thing. The University of Kansas let you get into their Computer Sciences Masters program if you had a math degree. She applied, they accepted, and Margaret ended up with a Masters in Computer Science. Right out of school she got an offer from Bell Labs, ended up in Denver, and that's how Margaret got into technology. Margaret said, "It was an amazing turn of events in my life, and probably just because. You know one of those things that just happened." Margaret has some great advice for entrepreneurs ...listen for more...
Related Links: Magpie || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Margaret Burd, Magpie TI, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Entrepreneurship, Computer Sciences
6/1/10 Chnl: NCWIT bytes: 15275261 Listen to: Margaret Burd, CEO, Magpie TI

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839_ 5/10/10 - "The truth is that I love to make money"
The company started in a rent controlled apartment in 1992, and over nine years built up to a profitable, self funding business providing software solutions to customers such as MetLife, Olympus, and IBM. Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) along with Larry Nelson from w3w3.com interviewed ML Mackey – CEO & Co-Founder of Beacon Interactive Systems. Ms. Mackey is remarkable because she is a woman technology CEO who has built a successful company first in the private sector, and then again in the public sector. In the crash of 2001, Beacon successfully leveraged its core expertise to focus on SBIR and other government contracts, and has since become a preferred provider to the US Navy for workflow management solutions. Ms. Mackey has earned the respect of many in both private and government circles, and is actively contributing input at legislative and policy levels on how to bring commercial sector innovation to the Department of Defense. At one time in her life she was a ballet teacher. Lucy asked, "How did you get involved in technology?" ML replied, ""I wanted to give a profound answer, but the truth is that I love to make money. I couldn't see supporting the lifestyle I wanted teaching ballet, which I love." So ML applied for an electrical engineering scholarship, because they had the most available. "Turns out, luckily for me, that I really enjoyed what I was learning about. Engineering is a fascinating profession. It's a fun and exciting place to be. So I stumbled upon the place I needed to be." Explaining why she became an entrepreneur, "My partner and I like to do things, we like to make things happen, we like create things and be around smart creative people and we want to make an impact with what we are doing. It seemed like starting a company was a great combination for all these things. Now, I think it is the adrenalin, the challenge, the opportunity, the creativity and it's the great people I get to work with at my company, it's the interesting customers we get to work with, it's never dull."
Related Links: Beacon Interactive Systems || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Blog || Find It || Keywords: ML Mackey, Beacon Interactive Systems, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Entrepreneurship > 5/10/10 Chnl: NCWIT bytes: 14471526 Listen to: ML Mackey, Beacon Interactive Systems

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828_ 4/19/10 - Cutting edge analytics for B2B and B2C industries
Her experiences are a learning history. Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network and Lee Kennedy, Founder, BolderSearch.com interviewed Candace Fleming Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Crimson Hexagon. Candace worked with Gary King to take Crimson Hexagon from a nascent research technology to a successful commercial application. She and her merry band of believers in social media have created a technology that large and small companies use to derive meaning from the online conversation. Via a software-as-a-service offering, their clients can understand daily what thousands of people are saying about their brand, their competitors, and pretty much any topic being discussed (some of which sure are doozies). She does all the crazy things a small-company CEO does, ranging from negotiating big contracts and hiring an outstanding team, to reading Tweets on snack food fetishes (anything for their clients!). Candace pointed out that many entrepreneurs and executives strive for perfection but recommends to put things 'to bed' sooner than they think...the reason being good is okay, not perfection. She explains much more in the interview. When asked what are the winning characteristics of a successful entrepreneur she replied, "Be an optimist; don't be afraid of hard work; and be direct and honest." Listen for more...
Related Links: Crimson Hexagon || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Blog || PodCast Directory || Keywords: Candace Fleming, Crimson Hexagon, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Entrepreneurship, 4/19/10 bytes: 11867536 Chnl: NCWIT LISTEN to Candace Fleming, CEO and Co-Founder of Crimson Hexagon

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820_ 4/5/10 - Venture Capital and Board of Directors
Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network and Lee Kennedy, Founder, BolderSearch.com, spoke with Maria Cirino, CoFounder & Managing Director, .406 Ventures for the NCWIT Toolbox Series. The topic today is forming as well as learning from all kinds of boards, advisor boards, boards of directors, etc. Maria explained their unusual name, "We are a Boston based venture capital firm, focusing on early stage technology investments. We dug into .406 and it was a strong Red Sox player, Ted Williams, who batted a .406 average in 1941 and that has not been beaten since. The reason Ted was able to achieve this was, he had extraordinary vision, and he'd taken the time over the years to analyze where, within the strike zone he could hit best. We thought that measured selectivity was a great metaphor for this business. Because while we see upwards of 800 very talented entrepreneurs every year, we invest in half-a-dozen of those. Her advice for avoiding a bad situation "Do your homework upfront. Find names that might not be on that VC's reference list, and find out why. If they had a bad experience, try to understand that, sometimes it's a personality conflict, but the more homework you can do upfront the better off you'll be. Remind everybody the board's role is not to run the company. The board's role is to advise the company, the board's role is to assist the company, provide oversight to that management team and ultimately to hire and fire the CEO." Listen for more details about boards...
Related Links: .406 Ventures || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Blog || Keywords: Maria Cirino, .406 Ventures, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Entrepreneurship, Board of Directors - 4/5/10 bytes: 15823206 Chnl: NCWIT LISTEN to Maria Cirino, CoFounder & Managing Director, .406 Ventures for the NCWIT Toolbox Series

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768_ Reform legislation, reform the way people think
National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT is a non-profit coalition of corporations, other non-profits and universities from all around the country who believe women's participation in technology and computer sciences needs to be increased. They work together from the K-12 through the IT workforce to run programs that increase, promote and advance women's participation in IT. Larry interviewed Jenny Slade, Communication Director of NCWIT about an important project they are working on. Jenny pointed out, "Women represent 50% of the workforce and in part because technology is inherently a creative venture. If you're not including 50% of the population in the creation of technology, then you're losing a lot of innovative ideas. Women comprise about 24% of the professional IT workforce and at universities women bring home between 12-14% of computer science and information degrees and in the K-12 space, girls comprise 17% of ACT computer science test takers and that's given that young women take more than half of ACT tests. We've launched our first fundraising campaign. We've been very successful in the past raising funding from our constituents, to perform our work. If you donate $25 to NCWIT for our work in DC, what you're doing is putting statistics and important data into the hands of policy makers...people who make decisions about whether, and how computer science is taught in our schools. One of the ways we're going to recruit more women into IT is to reform legislation, reform the way people think about computer science both in our schools and in our workplaces." More info... NOTE: Google incentive: Random Drawing for Trip to Sydney, Australia - for two! Learn More...
NOTE: Google incentive: Random Drawing for Trip to Sydney, Australia - for two! Learn More... Related Links: NCWIT Share || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: NCWIT, Jenny Slade, Lucy Sanders, Women in IT, National Center for Women & Information Technology NCWIT Heroes, Google > Channel: NCWIT 7547432 bytes - 1/4/10 LISTEN to Jenny Slade, Communications Director, NCWIT

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764_ NCWIT Needs Your Help

NCWIT is a strong advocate in DC for innovation, for the importance of IT/ computing, and for assuring that girls and women are involved in inventing the technology of the future. "We provide research and statistics to policy makers and convene important discussions throughout the year. Although we are generously supported with National Science Foundation and corporate funding, we cannot use these dollars in DC. Hence the need for this campaign. If this cause appeals to you, please help us pass it along."

Warm regards for a very happy holiday,
Lucinda Sanders, CEO & Co-founder

NOTE: Google incentive: Random Drawing for Trip to Sydney, Australia - for two! Learn More... Related Links: NCWIT Share || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: NCWIT, Lucy Sanders, Women in IT, National Center for Women & Information Technology NCWIT Heroes > Channels: NCWIT

806_ 3/15/10 - Be ready to own your destiny
When Gail was in high school, they didn't have personal computers, you had to go find a big computer, about the size of a refrigerator. Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT and Lee Kennedy, NCWIT Director, serial entrepreneur and founder of Boldersearch, along with Larry Nelson, from w3w3.com interviewed Gail Goodman the President, Chairman and CEO of Constant Contact for the NCWIT Hero Series. Gail joined Constant Contact in 1999, when there were six people, today they have 625, and has more than 300,000 customers worldwide. When asked about her personal characteristics ... she had four: 1. Tenacity, she refuses to fail! 2. She is an analytic animal. When she sees a challenge she doesn't react emotionally, she reacts analytically. Diagnose it, do a causal analysis and then fix it. 3. She is a continuous learner. I understand that I don't know what I don't know and I'm not afraid to get help from others. I'm always reading, I'm always talking to others and I'm always picking other people's brains. 4. The final piece is not natural for me but I think it is immensely important that you be open to the feedback of others. Recognize the weaknesses in yourself - then you can compliment them with the team. Gail's advice to young entrepreneurs: "Get experience; earn your stripes somewhere else. Not only will it give you experience and a guide to your own leadership and management style, I think it'll make you much more fundable." There's much more...
Related Links: Constant Contact || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Channel || PodCasting Directory || Keywords: Gail Goodman, Constant Contact, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Hero Series, Entrepreneurs >> 3/15/10 Bytes: 14435477 Channel: NCWIT LISTEN to Gail Goodman, Constant Contact

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726_ Computing Awards - Designed for High School Girls, Grades 9-12
ATTENTION: Employers, parents, teachers, grandparents, aunts & uncles; It's time for the 2009 NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Awards - Designed for girls in High School, grades 9 -12. Girls all around the country are submitting their applications - Due: November 15th, 2009! Larry talked with Ruthe Farmer, Director of Strategic Initiatives, NCWIT about this fascinating program. Ruthe said, "The awards program was designed to recognize and encourage girls who are interested and active in technology at the high school level (grades 9 through 12) and keep them in the pipeline so they can work for you one day. The program is open to any girl in the United States (so any girl with a U.S. Zip Code) is eligible." Larry asked what are the awards? "At the national level, the girls win $500 cash; a laptop which is a gift from Bank of America our National Sponsor; a trip with a parent to the gala "Technology of the Future Showcase" at Bank of America's Headquarters in Charlotte, NC; So it's a pretty big prize package. At the event they'll receive a 'Goodie bag' with a beautiful Crystal/glass Trophy for both them and their school because we really want them displayed in the trophy case right along with the football trophies, creating a tradition that girls at that school apply and win this award. Essentially the girls apply on line and they provide a name and address for their teacher and parent, who also get to view and endorse the application. The application asks questions about the kind of computing they've done..." Listen for more...
Related Links: Applications for Aspirations in Computing & Info for Parents || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: NCWIT, Aspirations in Computing Award, Ruthe Farmer, High School Girls, Bank of America, Technology Channel: NCWIT > 6477012 bytes - 10/26/09 LISTEN

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328_ The Trend is Changing for Start-up Entrepreneurs
Statistics show that better than 50% of new entrepreneurs are female. Many business people are surprised to hear that there is a growing number (contrary to popular belief) of women getting into and making a very productive and rewarding career in Information Technology (IT). As a result, many women of varying ages and interests are taking the entrepreneurial plunge. In walks Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), headquartered at CU Boulder. Lucy is a Bell Fellow and points out (proves) there are many female entrepreneur success stories or as she and her team states it, they are “NCWIT Heroes”. If you have any interest in this burgeoning growth phase of Women and IT, check out the first in this series of amazing true-life stories.

720_ New technologies are emerging at a faster pace than companies can swallow
Despite the new technology flood, companies lack a strategy to on-board these disruptions. As a result, they often react, flounder, or simply ignore them. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, and Lee Kennedy NCWIT board member and founder of Bolder Search along with Larry Nelson interviewed Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group and co-author of the business bestseller, “Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies“. She frequently consults and speaks on social and emerging technologies and publishes a blog, The Altimeter. This interview is part of the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box series was focused on the social media in the future. Charlene had a very straight forward about the topice and defined it as technology allows people to connect with each other. She started getting involved with social technologies in 1996 and has seen it evolve. Besides enabling others to connect it can have differing impacts on relationships ...enriching them as well as exploiting them. Charlene also talked about how leaders win by letting go and ROI. Listen for more...
Related Links: Altimeter Group || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Charlene Li, Altimeter Group, Lucinda Sanders, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT, Social Media, Lee Kennedy, Larry Nelson, Change - Channel: NCWIT - Bytes: 23798912 - 10/5/09 LISTEN

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692_ Founder and Chair of the Mozilla Foundation discusses open source software
Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Lee Kennedy and Larry Nelson, spoke with Mitchell Baker, founder and Chair of the Mozilla Foundation. She just received the "Women of Vision Award" from the Anita Borg Institute. This is the next in the Entrepreneurial Toolbox Series - a series focused on different subjects entrepreneurs need to know about. We've talked about networking, failures, business competitions, how to get an NSF SBIR grant, and today they are discussing open source. Mitchell went onto define the parameters, "Open Source is software which is available for use under license, meaning under terms which meet certain criteria. So the software has to be available in a way that says it's free of charge; you're free to access and have the source code version of the software (that's the version that human beings can understand) - you can get the source code version free of charge, you can use that version however you want. I can take a piece of open source software, I can change it, I can modify it, I can brand it differently, I can make a new product out of it and I can use that product either myself or as the basis of a commercial business. So the ability for you to get access to the source code, to change it and the ability to do what you want with it is the core criteria for being open source." There's more...
Related Links: Mozilla Blog || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Mitchell Baker, Mozilla Foundation, Open Source, Lucinda Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Entrepreneurial Toolbox Series > Channel: NCWIT 35998409 bytes 7/13/09 LISTEN

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668_ Entrepreneurs are people who would just be dreadful employees
When Ellen Siminoff was asked, "What is it about you that makes the entrepreneur part tick?" Ellen, who was a founding executive at Yahoo said, "When I started Yahoo, we were a small group of folks and thought we were changing the world! For me, it's about the idea and the people and the excitement of creating it." Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interviewed Ellen, CEO and president - their mission,. "Shmoop wants to make you a better lover (of literature, history, poetry and writing)." About 18 years ago, Ellen and her husband started a different company, they were distributing television programming in Eastern Europe and she fell in love with the media industry. In 1994, at the Los Angeles Times, Ellen started running their online classifieds (this was really early), and she realized technology could be used to deliver media in a really interesting way. Today she's a great fan of the Kindle. Lucy asked what's next for Shmoop? Ellen's reply, "Well, I think we've done a really great job on Lit, history and poetry. We're going to do more in Civics, and get some of the maths and sciences up there because I think it's really important to be able to read, write and do arithmetic." There's more...
Related Links: NCWIT Home || Shmoop University || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || PodCast Directory || Keywords: Ellen Siminoff, Shmoop University, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes 6/1/09 > Bytes: 18852679 - 6/1/09 LISTEN

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This is NCWIT week at the w3w3.com! April 27, 2009...
The National Center for Women and Information Technology, located right here in Boulder, Colorado, and Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-founder will be celebrating their 5th anniversary. On May 11, 2009 they will hold the NCWIT Symons Award (In Memory of Jeannette Symons) honoring Anousheh Ansari. Background here. Next is the NCWIT "Global Status of Women in Technology" event which will be held May 12-14 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

655_ Reaching more than 14 million women each month with blogs and more
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interviewed Elisa Camahort Page the co-founder and COO of BlogHer for the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Hero Series. BlogHer is the leading community and media network for women who blog. BlogHer reaches more than 14 million women each month via annual conferences, a Web hub, and a publishing network. She is a blogging pioneer and marketing executive with 18 years of experience in Silicon Valley. Elisa was at the vanguard of professional and business blogging. Among the seven blogs she writes are blogs with personal, professional and political focus areas. Elisa opened her own high-tech marketing consultancy, Worker Bees, after a successful career as a marketing executive in the cable broadband sector. Founded in February 2005 as a labor of love by three bloggers, BlogHer's mission is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment...listen for more entrepreneurial ideas...
Related Links: BlogHer Home || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || w3w3® Media Network Blog || Keywords: Elisa Camahort, BlogHer, Lucy Sanders, Blogs, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information, Silicon ValleyTechnology, NCWIT Heroes > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 28647552 > 4.27.09 LISTEN

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656_ Everything You want to know about working with non-profits and technology
Confluence is an information technology services firm dedicated to supporting the culture, mission and budgets of the nonprofit sector, and select local government clients. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interview Lisa Rau, Chief Executive Officer of Confluence for the Entrepreneurial Tool Box series. Lisa is also on the faculty of the Center for Nonprofit Advancement's Learning and Leadership Institute. She shared some great ideas about partnerships, social networking and strategic strategy assessments. Lisa said, "Non-profits are all about building community, outreach, advocacy, education and these are all things that social networking can be very instrumental in. It's better to have one or two widgets you can work with than a whole group of them. Even with a blog, the technology is the easy part. It's the organization part where someone has to work with the blog, post it and review comments in order to make it fresh and worthwhile." Listen for more...
Related Links: NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Confluence Corp || Find It Archives || Keywords: Lisa Rau, Confluence Corporation, Non-profits, Lucy Sanders, Entrepreneurial Tool Box, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 19066883 > 4.27.09 LISTEN

653_ The reinvented web is a more social, more connected place
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interview Mena Trott, Co-Founder, President, Six Apart. Mena has been involved in the weblogging space since she began publishing to her own weblog, dollarshort.org, in early 2001. She speaks regularly at industry conferences. Mena can be found writing about weblogging and Six Apart at Mena's Corner. Mena pointed out, "At Six Apart, we provide the tools that have helped reinvent the web as a more social, more connected place full of distinct voices and lively conversations. In just a few years, millions of bloggers have dramatically changed the face of media, communications and society. We believe in the power of blogging, and that's why we make the most powerful and expressive platforms and services available: Movable Type, TypePad, Vox, Blogs.com and TypePad AntiSpam." Six Apart and its famous products Movable Type and TypePad helped pioneer the blog category and move blogging into the mainstream. Since 2001, it has enabled millions of individuals, media companies and enterprises to create blogs and form rich, interactive communities. Six Apart powers conversations among passionate people and leading organizations around the globe. Listen for more...
Related Links: NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Six Apart || PodCasting Directory || Keywords: Mena Trott, Six Apart, Lucy Sanders, Movable Type, TypePad, Vox, Blogs, AntiSpam, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 21183323 > 4.20.09 LISTEN

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633_ Realini named one of 50 Top Women in Technology by Corporate Board Member
In 2005 Carol Realini founded Obopay after traveling in Africa and recognizing that while mobile phones were ubiquitous, many people didn’t have access to even the most basic banking services. Recognizing the need and opportunity in both industrialized and developing nations, Carol designed Obopay’s business model to promote social and economic development throughout the world, by providing mobile savings, money transfer, and payments to people everywhere. In 2008, Carol was named one of the 50 Top Women in Technology by Corporate Board Member magazine. If you’ve not heard of Obopay, here’s a quick rundown; Obopay is simple, convenient, instant, secure, easy-to-use and available to everyone, working on any mobile phone with any carrier. Obopay does not run credit checks and transfers money in seconds. Obopay customers can use their existing bank accounts—at any American bank—to send and receive money via their mobile phone. Users send and receive money through mobile application, text message (SMS), mobile Web browser, secure Web site, widget or AOL Instant Messenger. Anyone can pick up money received by having it deposited directly into their existing bank account or by requesting a check, without having to sign up with Obopay. Obopay takes the time and hassle out of costly wire transfers, and lets businesses, banks and carriers connect with and deliver real value to America’s 200 million mobile consumers. Listen to Carol in her own words.
Related Links: Obopay || NCWIT Channel || Entrepreneurial Heroes 2007 || Entrepreneurial Heroes 2008 || Keywords: Carol Realini, NCWIT, Women in IT, Obopay, secure mobile money transfer, Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 23834856 > 3.16.09 LISTEN

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603_ Receiving a $100,000 Grant from the US Government for Research
Every federal program with a large R&D budget has to use a percentage of their budget to fund small businesses with these SBIR Grants. That was the topic of discussion with Krista Marks, founder of Kerpoof. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson continue with the NCWIT series the Entrepreneurial Toolbox Series. This is a new interview series designed to promote fundamental skills of entrepreneurship. The series interviews both men and women about a range of topics critical to entrepreneurial success, such as networking, how to procure funding, writing a business plan, raising money and the importance of failure. The series is sponsored by the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Alliance with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Qualcomm. Krista said, " The NSF (National Science Foundation) has many different programs aimed at advancing the cause of research and science in the United States and even internationally in some cases. SBIR stands for small business innovation research, so to qualify for an SBIR Grant you have to be a small business (fewer than 500 employees), and the grant has to be used specifically for funding research. A phase one grant is $100K and this funds the first part of that research, typically a feasibility type of analysis. The SBIR Grant is not unique to the NSF. Every federal program with a large R&D budget has to use a percentage of their budget to fund small businesses with these SBIR Grants. At the time Kerpoof wanted to do research on delivering an activity, entirely in a browser that would introduce kids to basic programming constructs and to do that in a way that is as responsive as traditional software. So we submitted an SBIR proposal and received a SBIR Phase I grant for $100,000.00 to complete that research." Krista shares a number of 'must knows'.
Related Links: Kerpoof English || Kerpoof Spanish || NCWIT Channel || SBIR Information || Entrepreneurial Toolbox || Keywords: Krista Marks, Kerpoof, Lucinda Sanders, NCWIT, SBIR Grants, Larry Nelson, Entrepreneurial Toolbox
Channels:NCWIT Bytes: 15353023 - 1/12/09 LISTEN

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598_ David Cohen says, "We invest a small amount of money in about 10 companies."
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson had a great conversation with David Cohen about the learning experiences of a new entrepreneur for the new NCWIT series, The Entrepreneurial Tool Box. David is a serial entrepreneur and investor in other startups with his company aptly named, Colorado Startups. David started 3 software companies here, two worked out pretty well, one didn’t. The first was a public safety software company started in ’93, still going in Broomfield, CO with a couple hundred employees now. The 2nd was a startup around mobile social networking – "We were a little early on that one." The 3rd was around music and RSS, we sold to a Silicon Valley company two years back. The subject of the 'Tool Box' interview is 'Business Planning Competitions. David gave an overview of TechStars and at the same time shared some insights every entrepreneur should listen to. "It is mentorship driven. We invest a small amount of money in about 10 companies that come to Boulder every summer for three months. We surround them with some of the best and brightest mentors and at the end of the summer they pitch their ideas to investors and hopefully keep going. We started with my own experiences and what I wished I had known back when starting my first company. The value of TechStars is the mentorship. The reason for that is because they are surrounded by expertise, people who’ve been there and done that, made those mistakes and had those successes and can really give them some critical feedback in a very compacted time frame. Then he detailed the quaities they are looking for. BTW, applications open January 19, 2009.
Related Links: TechStars || TechStars Scedule || Colorado Startups || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Practice || Keywords: David Cohen, TechStars, Colorado Startups, Lucy Sanders, NCWIT, Mentors, Entrepreneurial Tool Box, Blog, Investors >> Channels: NCWIT, VC, Bytes: 16188293 >

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575_ From Venture Capitalist to Entrepreneur Music Producer
(Part 1 of 2) Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson interviewed Heidi Roizen, CEO of Skinny Songs. Heidi Roizen has achieved success as an entrepreneur, a corporate executive, a corporate director and venture capitalist. She has held positions of leadership within a number of industry organizations, and is a recognized and popular spokesperson for the technology industry and entrepreneurial community. Currently, Roizen is CEO of SkinnySongs, which she launched in January of 2008. SkinnySongs introduced the first-ever collection of radio-hit-quality music in which the lyrics are specifically designed to motivate people to reach their weight and fitness goals. This is the first in this new NCWIT series, The Entrepreneurial Tool Box. Each interview will have a particular focus this interview addresses the best way to network. Many listeners will be very surprised at some of her comments, but remember Heidi is royalty when it comes to networking...ask Bill Gates. Lucy asks her to define Networking and references a comment made by Heidi that it isn't stalking. Lee wanted to know what entrepreneurs need to do to be prepared. Larry asked, "What types of people are in your network and how do you avoid compromising them?" Heidi has some great advice about the best way to reach out to venture capitalists and what not to do. This is a great series, listen now...
Related Links: Heidi Roizen Website || SkinnySongs || USA Today || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Home || Keywords: Heidi Roizen, Networking, Venture Capital, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Lucy Sanders - Channels: NCWIT on w3w3 & Social Entrepreneurship Bytes: 14773919 > LISTEN - 10/27/08

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581_ Networking 2.0 from a Venture Capitalist and Entrepreneur
(Part 2 of 2) "Networking is not an event driven thing. It’s not something you go out and do and then you’re done. It’s sort of a lifelong component of building your career. Frankly so many of the people in my network are my personal friends, I think it’s a lifelong component of building an interesting life", said Heidi Roizen during an interview with Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson. The long-term strength and stability of an organization is dependent on networking. Lucy is always intersted in looking into all the aspects of a topic asked Heidi, "Do you have examples of bad networking or the right way to act?" Heidi replied, "There are a number of trade associations in any industry, and that has always been part of my (I don’t want to call it networking) but building relationships and learning more about your industry. First of all it is a way to give back to the industry and a way to do some constructive things and you build relationships outside of what your immediate needs might be, but ultimately come in very handy for you as well. And I definitely would credit my affiliations with the trade associations within my industry as things that really helped me build out my network. Pitfalls – When you’re going out to meet someone, you have to think, ‘what do I have to offer?’ I think that people have more to offer than they think they do. Every other person you meet out there is a human being and they have interests, children, and hobbies and passions and causes they support. I think you can build relationships with people by looking more deeply at the whole person." There's more great advice...
Related Links: Heidi Roizen Website || SkinnySongs || USA Today || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Home || Keywords: Heidi Roizen, Networking, Skinny Songs, Venture Capital, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Lucy Sanders > Channels: NCWIT Bytes: 14773919 > LISTEN 11/3/08

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549_ Building a Successful Online Business for a Female Entrepreneur
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) and Larry turned the table on NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy. Lucy, Larry and Lee (the 3 L's) interview successful female entrepreneurs. Lucy and Larry decided to turn the table on Lee, and put the spotlight on this CEO/Founder of TriCalyx, a consulting business focused on helping people build an online business. She has worked with Brad Feld, and had been the CIO at Webroot Software. Lee has been on a number of other startup teams and moved to Boulder from the Silicon Valley. Like so many others, she quickly saw and experienced the entrepreneurial excitement and supportive cluster. She has an interesting makeup of strengths and interests. Lee is very technically inclined and has a marketing background. Her two partners really carry the ball in in the software development and other techie areas...that's building a well-balanced team. TriCalyx does a great deal in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Lee pointed out that 85% of the world’s online population, purchase online! And that’s up 40% over the past two years. Then for people in the 75K and higher income bracket it’s more like 90+%. She has some great advice for parents of young people that can help in supporting their children’s move into IT. In fact, you might want your children to listen to this interview also.
Related Links: Tricalyx || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Practice || Find It ||
Keywords: Lee Kennedy, TriCalyx, Lucy Sanders, NCWIT, Search Engine Optimization, Online Business, Entrepreneur > Bytes: 13755771 > LISTEN 9/8/08

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Successful entrepreneurs: Realistic optimists
885_ 8/23/10- Entrepreneurs have personal lives and sometimes have to struggle to bring balance to their life. Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network interviewed Marcie Black, CTO & Co-founder, Bandgap Engineering. Bandgap has pioneered the development of a highly tunable and inexpensive method for nanostructuring silicon and is applying this technology to high efficiency solar cells. Lucy asked, "If you were talking to a young person who wanted to be an entrepreneur, what other advice would you give them?" Marcie replied with a great deal of passion, "I wouldn't advise people to be an entrepreneur, even though I love it. What I would advise them to do is really figure out what drives them. If it's making money, or having prestige, it's probably not the best route for them. But if it's something like bring technology to the market and trying to make the world a better place through their technology, then I would advise them to be an entrepreneur. Once they become an entrepreneur, my biggest advice would be to follow your passion and do what you enjoy, what you really believe in. Because if you believe in something and you work hard at it, you're much more likely to be successful. She went onto share, "I've noticed that of the successful entrepreneurs that I know, are very optimistic and I am very optimistic as well. But you can't be blindly optimistic. You have to be what I call 'realistic optimist'; you can't have your blinders on. But you do have to see a way that the company can be successful and arrange it so all the parts fall into place for that to happen. So, I'd say optimism and also persistence and work ethic are very important." ...There's more...
Related Links: Bandgap Engineering Home || NCWIT Share || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Marcie Black, Bandgap Engineering, Entrepreneurs, Nanostructuring Silicon, Solar Cells, Lucinda Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT >> 8/23/10 bytes: 13017968
Listen to: Marcie Black, Co-founder & COO, Bandgap Engineering

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868_ 7/12/10 - Bootstrapping: Growing
from 3 to 60 employees
"We bootstrapped the company, just three people for two years, very product focused, but she is happy to announce they are now nearing 60 employees, so it's quite a different company now than it was even back in 2008. On the product side we're just really focused on making life simpler for event organizers," said Julia Hartz, EventBrite, Co-Founder & President. Lee Kennedy, NCWIT Board Member and founder of Bolder Search, Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network had a conversation with Julia. She is responsible for the overall vision and strategy of the company. Julia is a reformed Television Network Executive and comes to Eventbrite by way of Hollywood. During her tenure in the television industry, Julia was a creative executive at FX Networks and helped supervise The Shield, Nascar Drivers: 360, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Prior to FX Networks, Julia worked in creative development at MTV Networks where she was fortunate enough to work on several prolific shows such as Jackass. When asked, "Why are you and entrepreneur and what makes you tick?" Julia replied, "I'm an entrepreneur because I think I can change an industry. I also love helping to build something that people want. Being an entrepreneur, for me, I feel like I'm part owner in a movement and there is just something inherently satisfying about working on something you feel such ownership and passion about." Based on her experiences Julia shares a number of ideas and recommendations for entrepreneurs ...listen now...
Related Links: EventBrite || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || Bolder Search || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Julia Hartz, EventBrite, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Bolder Search, Entrepreneurship 7/12/10 Chnl: NCWIT bytes: 12491967 Listen to: Julia Hartz, President & Co-Founder, EventBrite.com

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865_ 6/28/10 - Excellent advice and ideas for all entrepreneurs
“Being stuck with a bad power cable is like being stuck in a bad relationship," said Dr. Katherine (Katie) Hall, CTO of WiTricity. Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network and Lee Kennedy, Founder, BolderSearch.com and NCWIT board member interviewed Katie, the CTO of Witricity and previously Wide-Net Technologies. She is an expert in Photonics, holds eleven US patents got her start at Bell Labs (Lucy is a Bell Labs alum also). This interview is part of the NCWIT Hero Series and Katie shares some great insights for entrepreneurs. She pointed out that a common trait for entrepreneurs is that they 'want to make things better' and work with a team. Katie goes onto say, "Take a risk and don't feel concerned about failing. And don't be afraid to be part of the team...take the leap." She really pushes for, "Care more about the people you work with than what you are working on. When asked, "What personal characteristics do you think have given you advantages as an entrepreneur?" Katie's reply is also excellent advice for all entrepreneurs. She doesn't like to be told,'no' which ties into those advantages. "Persistence, competitive and optimistic." Witricity is working on transferring electric energy or power over distance without wires; it is commercializing technology first invented at MIT. Cell phones, game controllers, laptop computers, mobile robots, even electric vehicles capable of re-charging themselves without ever being plugged in. WiTricity Corp. is working to make this future a reality, developing wireless electricity technology that will operate safely and efficiently over distances ranging from centimeters to several meters—and will deliver power ranging from milliwatts to kilowatts. Listen for more details and ideas...
Related Links: WiTricity Home || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Katie Hall, WiTricity, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Entrepreneurship 6/28/10 Chnl: NCWIT bytes: 17162974 Listen to: Katie Hall, CTO, WiTricity

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844_ 5/17/10 - Making life easier so that we can innovate faster
What is a term that brings people together in a common place? Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) along with Larry Nelson from w3w3.com interviewed Pooja Nath, CEO and Founder of Piazzza. Piazzza gets students help, fast. Students post questions (anonymously, if they like) and their classmates and professors collectively answer. This online platform gets them high quality answers for even the most specific doubts, sometimes within minutes. When Pooja thinks back to her undergrad days, when everybody would be sitting together in the same lab, mostly because they were not in a financial situation to own their own laptops or computers, the amount of help people got and the ways in which they worked off each other was just so beautiful. That was her inspiration to come up with a term that had the same meaning in her mind. "My inspiration was that I was one of the very few female students in computer sciences in India. There were about 420 boys in my class, we were about 20 girls and in computer sciences. So I'd be by myself on the side, too shy to ask any guy for help and I just wished I had something to connect me to my classmates in a way that I could tap into their collective knowledge." Pooja understands the problems students have studying for assignments or exams. They have specific questions that have a lot of context. She says, search engines can't help much because there's a lot of knowledge out there that's too general. Last summer Pooja built the first prototype herself, then launched to a single class at the University of Maryland where she did her master's degree. When that started to go quite positively, we launched to more classes at Stanford and University of Maryland - Santa Clara, and that went even better.
Related Links: Piazzza || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Blog || Keywords: Pooja Nath, Piazzza, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Entrepreneurship, Students, Computer Sciences 5/17/10 Bytes: 12416421 LISTEN to Pooja Nath, Piazzza

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782_ Benchmarking: Are women leading alongside men? 2/1/2010
In 1998, Marie Wilson founded The White House Project in recognition of the need to build a truly representative democracy – one where women lead alongside men in all spheres. Since its inception, The White House Project has been a leading advocate and voice on women’s leadership. An advocate of women’s issues for more than 30 years, Marie Wilson is founder and President of The White House Project, co-creator of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work ® Day and author of Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World (Viking 2004). The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) hosted the White House Project Benchmarking study. Marie led the eye-opening program. Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) along with Larry Nelson from w3w3.com interviewed Marie after the program. The White House Project, a national, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization, 501(c)(3), aims to advance women’s leadership in all communities and sectors, up to the U.S. presidency. By filling the leadership pipeline with a richly diverse, critical mass of women, we make American institutions, businesses and government truly representative. Through multi-platform programs, The White House Project creates a culture where America’s most valuable untapped resource—women—can succeed in all realms. To advance this mission, The White House Project strives to support women and the issues that allow women to lead in their own lives and in the world. When women leaders bring their voices, vision and leadership to the table alongside men, the debate is more robust and the policy is more inclusive and sustainable. Listen, there's much more...
Related Links: The White House Project || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Share || Event Photos || Mastering Change || Keywords: Marie Wilson, The White House Project, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, > Channel: NCWIT 11286025 bytes - 2/1/10 LISTEN to Marie Wilson, President, The White House Project

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778_ Entrepreurial impact on the gaming industry
The medical field, the gaming industry and the pet accessories market have seemingly little in common, but Beth Marcus has built a name in all three. Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) along with Larry Nelson from w3w3.com interviewed Beth Marcus for the NCWIT Heros series. Beth has been Founder and CEO of several successful startups, most notably EXOS, Inc., which was launched in 1988, venture capital backed and sold to Microsoft in 1996. Since then she has been involved in 20 start-ups in a variety of fields as a founder, investor, or advisor. She has raised equity numerous times and has also done angel investments herself. Several of these ventures have been acquired by public companies. Beth has worked as a consultant providing patent strategy, litigation support and other strategic technology related consulting services. Beth is an acknowledged expert in the hand-device interface space and has been an expert for several of the major players in the industry in support of prior patents litigations. Recently Beth became founding CEO of Playsmrt, Playsmrt allows parents to create a safe, interactive environment in which children 1 to 8 years old can play media, communicate with family members, and learn. Parents set limits, kids explore! Beth shares some great entrepreneurial advice. There's much more...
Related Links: Zeemote || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Channel || Playsmrt || Engineering Pathway || Keywords: Beth Marcus, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, EXOS, Microsoft, Zeemote, Digital Gaming, Playsmrt, Entrepreneurs > Channel: NCWIT bytes:22899343, 1/25/10 LISTEN to Beth Marcus

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2/22/10 - 796_ Emerging technology companies and market opportunities
As a founding partner and editorial director in Guidewire Group, Chris Shipley consults with emerging technology companies in the U.S. and Europe to identify market opportunities and accelerate products to market. Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT and Lee Kennedy, NCWIT Director, serial entrepreneur and founder of Boldersearch, along with Larry Nelson, from w3w3.com interviewed Chris for the NCWIT ToolBox Series. Chris said, “In this market, revenue is the new venture capital. Going out and working with customers, meeting a need and getting paid for what you do is business building. The average ‘fund raise’ is going to take 3 to six months minimum. You might as well be out building customer relationships which will accelerate your fundraising and put money in the bank in the interim. So relentless focus on drive to revenue is a important. What I look for in an early stage company, what appeals to me is this intersection of a great idea, a real market need, a smart business model and a passionate team, that is the G Score". The simplest way to think about this G Score, is G stands for the gas for early stage companies. It's the transparent and objective measurement of a company across seven categories of performance and execution and it proves to be very prescriptive for early stage companies and it changes the conversations of large companies that want to work with them because it puts them on a common ground. Your team is important. The key is for men to remember that the best teams are integrated teams. So when you're thinking about who you should bring on to your executive team, a bias toward bringing a woman into the team is actually a bias toward improving your business." Listen for more...
Related Links: Chris Shipley Website || Guidewire Group || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Channel || Keywords: Chris Shipley, Guidewire Group, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Emerging Technology, Market Opportunities > 2/22/10 bytes: 35409818 Chnl: NCWIT LISTEN to Chris Shipley, CoFounder & CEO, GuideWire Group

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740_ From the depths of a financial disaster to a multi-million dollar winner
Caterina Fake, Co-Founder, Hunch, a collective intelligence decision making system was interviewed by Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT and Lee Kennedy, NCWIT Director, serial entrepreneur and founder of Boldersearch, along with Larry Nelson, from w3w3.com for the NCWIT Hero series. Before Hunch, Caterina was the co-founder of Flicker. Flicker was one of those companies that really opened up the eyes of people to the power of Web 2.0 and really taking together those features such as social networking and community and things people want to share. Caterina was a cofounder of Flicker, before it was sold to Yahoo. Initially they were trying to develop an online game. The company was dying, ready to collapse. Caterina took no salary for a year, others went without salary for 6 months only one guy, with three kids, was paid. "It was horrible but also the most growth oriented experience I ever had. We managed to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. We had enough to keep going for three months, not enough time to finish this game, but we could finish this photo sharing idea that we came up with. We'd applied to the Canadian government for a grant two years earlier and had forgotten about it. On December 23, we received a letter saying we got the grant - $150K I think, 50K for production, $50K for marketing - we only ended up collecting a fraction of it... but $50K at the time was enough to keep us afloat, to build this new thing which we'd christened 'Flicker'. It was very much a Phoenix from the ashes and a story that ended happily."
Related Links: Caterina Website || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || Hunch || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Caterina Fake, Hunch, Flicker, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Entrepreneurs, > Channel: NCWIT 23761397 bytes 11/16/09 LISTEN

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732_ Using innovation for social good - NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box
Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT and Lee Kennedy, NCWIT Director, serial entrepreneur and founder of Boldersearch, along with Larry Nelson, from w3w3.com interviewed Yoky Matsuoka for the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box series. Yoky is a Torode Family Endowed Career Development Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. at MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Computational Neuroscience in 1998. She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at MIT and in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University. Today Yoky is an associate professor at the University of Washington focusing on neurobotics. In 2007 Her work in Robotics gained the MacArthur’s Foundation "Genius Award". The MacArthur Foundation characterizes her work as transforming our understanding of how the central nervous system coordinates musculoskeletal action and of how robotic technology can enhance the mobility of people with manipulation disabilities. In addition, Yoky started the YokyWorks Foundation – a non-profit to be recognized as a premier provider of practical engineering solutions for people seeking to improve their life experience. Their mission is to enable people to experience life beyond their physical or sensory capabilities. "Also I want to help my volunteers. Many have raised families and now want to have a way to contribute to society and I feel just having them exposed to this effort is giving them pleasure, and that also is extremely rewarding." Listen for more exciting details...
Related Links: Yoky Works || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: NCWIT, Yoky Matsuoka, Yoky Works, Lucy Sanders, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Boldersearch, Entrepreneurial Tool Box, Neurobotics, Channel: NCWIT > 24587183 bytes - 11/2/09 LISTEN

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713_ Entrepreneurs: High tolerance for risk; passionate; visionary; adapt to change
When interviewing serial entrepreneurs you begin to see patterns along with unique issues and ideas. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interviewed Anu Shukla, a serial entrepreneur. Prior to founding Offerpal Media, Anu was the founder and CEO of Mybuys Inc. where she currently serves on the Board of Directors. Mybuys is a venture-backed company in the eCommerce personalization market. Prior to Mybuys, Anu pioneered the category of Internet Marketing Automation as founder and CEO of Rubric, Inc. Rubric was acquired in 2000 for $366 million. Offerpal Media is the first "Managed Offer Platform" for social applications, online communities and e-commerce sites. Their full-service, turnkey advertising platform monetizes social publisher's traffic while generating high-quality leads for advertisers. The platform is based on an innovative engagement-marketing model in which users earn points or virtual currencies by participating in unique advertising offers that are specially engineered for targeting, relevancy and maximum conversions. The company was founded in June, 2007, with the vision of providing a new technology platform for the social media marketplace. Listen to Anu for entrepreneurial ideas that we can all apply. The Offerpal Media network reaches more than 50 million social networking users in total and spans hundreds of the most popular social applications on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, hi5, Friendster and other leading social networks. They also work with dozens of community web sites and online games.
Related Links: OfferPal Media Home || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Mastering Change ||
Anu Shukla, OfferPal Media, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT, Larry Nelson, Managed Offer Platform, Social Applications, Online Communities, eCommerce Sites, Mastering Change, Channel: NCWIT >> 21137766 Bytes - 9/7/09 LISTEN

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685_ TechStars alum joins the Entrepreneurial Heroes Series
Emily Olson is a TechStars alum and for people who've listened to our Entrepreneurial Toolbox Interview series you've heard David Cohen talk about TechStars a wonderful program here in Boulder to help budding entrepreneurs. Emily is a cofounder, Foodzie, an online market place where you can discover and buy foods from all kinds of passionate food producers and growers. Business Week named Emily and the three cofounders some of the most promising entrepreneurs in tech. "We're growing a lot." says Emily, Right now, people want farms local to them and to have more sources for that. So that's where Foodzie is focusing, helping the growers market and the people to find what they're looking for and using the tools we've developed to do that. When asked what Emily like about technology in the food industry she had a long list of great points.. Small producers have a hard time getting into the big stores, the Internet provides unlimited shelf space without the brick and mortar; you can get to know the grower - something never possible in a store and the videos and social media bring so much more information to the buyer. There's more...
Related Links: Foodzie || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Find It || Keywords: Emily Olson, Foodzie, TechStars, Lucy Sanders, NCWIT, National Center for Women & Information Technology, Entrepreneurial Toolbox > Channels: NCWIT 21531797 bytes LISTEN 6/29/09 LISTEN

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667_ Only 12% of graduates are women - we need a huge segment of the population to be involved.
The first annual NCWIT Symons Innovator Award was presented to Anousheh Ansari this past Monday, May 11th, and it was a remarkable event. We stood 100 strong in the foyer of Heidi Roizen's home as Jennie Symons, the orphaned 9 year old daughter of Jeanette Symons presented the award to Anousheh Ansari, the first woman private explorer in space, the first astronaut of Iranian descent and with her family, title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize. She is Chair, CEO and Co-founder of Prodea Systems, and formerly Chair, CEO and Co-Founder of Telecom Technologies, Inc. a technology company sold for $750 million. These men and women, gathered here, are outstanding examples of the promise and the future for 'women and information technology'. We begin this story in Atherton, CA, to celebrate one woman's success and to work on preparing the road for future young women and for the competitive advantage of our country... Statistics show that better than 50% of new entrepreneurs are female. They receive 3% of the VC investments and only 5% of the Federal funds set aside for new businesses. It is a gender issue to be sure. While many women of varying ages and interests are taking the entrepreneurial plunge, Lucy Sanders points out another big issue, not so readily recognized, is the Global competitiveness of our country so adversely affected by a subtle gender bias. Today the numbers of students going into computer science studies are plummeting. As this workforce dwindles, the best job opportunities grow. While attending the NCWIT Conference hosted by Google, Jeff Huber, Sr. VP of Engineering at Google said, "It's a critical problem! A crisis for the industry, for Google." Only 12% of graduates are women at a time when we need a huge segment of the population to be involved. Is the study of math and science important to our collective future? We certainly believe so and the National Center for Women and Information Technology is making the difference.
Related Links: NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Blog || CO Coalition for Gender and IT || NCWIT Practice|| NCWIT Channel || PHOTOS Reception || Google Campus || Keywords: NCWIT, Lucy Sanders, Women in IT, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes, NCWIT Toolbox Series, Google, Jeff Huber, Anousheh Ansari, Jeanette Symons, First NCWIT Symons Innovator Award > Channels: NCWIT Bytes: 6525913 > 5/18/09

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658_ Social Media: You have to accept that we live in public today
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interviewed Tina Sharkey, Chairman and Global President of BabyCenter for the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box Series. Prior to joining BabyCenter, Tina was co-founder and chief community architect of iVillage.com. BabyCenter is the Web’s #1 global interactive parenting brand, reaching 78% of new and expecting moms online in the United States, and reaching 15 million parents monthly across 18 markets worldwide. When Tina was asked about the social media she replied, "I can tell you that social media is not an empire unto itself. Social media is really a facilitating and enabling platform about the tools, the services and applications that allow people to connect, communicate and share with each other. Social media is really a collection of things that enable conversations and sharing, that enable discovery. It's the media that's created by people and you have to figure out who are the people you trust and who is in your circle of friends, whose opinion do you trust?" She goes onto share some practical online insights...listen now...
Related Links: NCWIT Home || BabyCenter Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || PodCast Directory || Keywords: Tina Sharkey, BabyCenter, Lucy Sanders, Blogs, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information, Social Media, Expecting Moms, Entrepreneurial Tool Box; Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 29381070 > 5.4.09 LISTEN

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657_ Good software comes from a collaboration between developers and designers
Rashmi Sinha is a designer, researcher and entrepreneur. She is confounder & CEO for SlideShare. Rashmi believes that good software comes from a true collaboration between developers and designers. Her background is social software & interface design. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interview her for the NCWIT Hero Series. How and why she became an entrepreneur is very interesting and many entrepreneurs will be able to relate to her story. Rashmi has a PhD in Cognitive NeuroPsychology from Brown University in 1998. After moving to UC Berkeley for a PostDoc, she fell in love with the Web, and realized that many issues that Web technologists think about are problems of human psychology. She worked on search interfaces & recommender systems. SlideShare is a great way to get your slides out there on the Web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience. Do you want to get the word out about your product or service? Do you want your slides to reach people who could not make it to your talk? Let your slides do the talking! This takes PowerPoint to a new level. Listen for more...
Related Links: http://www.slideshare.net/ SlideShare NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Rashmi's Blog || PodCasting Directory || Keywords: Rashmi Sinha, SlideShare, Lucy Sanders, PowerPoint, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 22030213 > 4.27.09 LISTEN

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641_ Ann Winblad, ...one of the foremost experts on navigating Silicon Valley
Lucy Sanders, NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, w3w3®.com spoke with Ann Winblad, co-founder and a Managing Director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. When Ann Winblad got started in the software industry she was based in Minneapolis, "It's a very entrepreneurial state, but there's not density in one entrepreneurial area - there's a little bit of software, a little media, a little of medical devices". Lucy, asked about Silicon Valley reputation. Ann said, "The Silicon Valley is still like Mesopotamia. It is said innovation is happening everywhere, and it is. Looking at the numbers, in 2008 there were about 1400 deals done outside of the US (Europe, Israel, China, India) about $13.4 Billion; compared to the US with about 2600 deals and about $29 billion invested. But relative to Silicon Valley, over 30% was invested in companies in the Bay area". The contemporary software industry started back in the late 1970s, Ann started her software company in Minneapolis in 1976, the same year that Microsoft started, within the next year Apple started and within two years Oracle started. There was enough of an infrastructure in Silicon Valley from the birth of the semi-conductor industry, and then we started to get these real anchor tenants, and so a high density of young companies..." Well, you can see, there is a wealth of information in this single interview with a woman who was and is part of the creation of the history and the future in Silicon Valley, your tour guide, today.
Related Links: Hummer Winblad Venture Partners || Hummer Winblad Team || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Practice || Entrepreneurial Toolbox || Keywords: Ann Winblad, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, NCWIT Toolbox, Lucy Sanders, Silicon Valley, Software, Venture Capital, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 27298484 > 3.30.09 LISTEN

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607_ Emmy Award winning reporter becomes founder of a tech company
Blip.TV is a very interesting site and provides an infrastructure for the video blogging community and it's much more than that. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson continue with the NCWIT Hero Series and talked with Dina Kaplan, COO and one of five co-founders of BLIP.TV. Dina says, "We definitely consider ourselves a media company, and I think that’s very important. If you go back a few decades, NBC and CBS and all those broadcast networks that we now think of as media companies, back in their early days, they were considered technology companies. So I think we’ll see that same transition happen with the new media companies. It’s incredibly rewarding to be a new media company that’s not betting on hits and not banking on hits, and essentially having the authority to giving the ‘green light’ or the ‘red light’ to a project. So what BLIP is, is a very democratic network where anyone can upload a show and if it’s good the show will amass hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers and can also have the opportunity to make money as well. You’ll never have that kind of democratic platform with a traditional TV network because just by their nature they have to invest in hits and bank on that and hope that something is really huge, because there’s a limited amount of bandwidth over those airways. So part of the reason that I jumped over to the new media is that it met my values and my beliefs that anyone who is talented should have a chance to succeed. It shouldn’t be up to one programming chief, what gets the green light and what does not." There's more...
Related Links: BLIP TV || NCWIT Channel || Entrepreneurial Heroes 2007 || Entrepreneurial Heroes 2008 || Keywords: Dina Kaplan, Blip TV, Lucinda Sanders, NCWIT, Hero Series, Larry Nelson, Entrepreneurs, Media, New Media Channels:NCWIT Bytes=20910396 > - 1/19/09 LISTEN

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592_ Brad Feld and the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box (Part 1 of 2)
Brad Feld was being drilled by Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson, about the learning experiences of a new entrepreneur for the new NCWIT series, The Entrepreneurial Tool Box. And as Brad said, "Dave Jilk was a college friend. In 1987 we launched a company which we then grew, with no financing into a couple million dollar business and sold in 1993. So that was the first real success I had, after a couple of companies that went absolutely no where." When addressing the failures Brad said, "Well you go through this cycle of believing, sort of the optimism of the creation at inception of the company, some progress, whatever progress there is and then ultimately you start to have some problems and you either push through the problems or you don’t. I mean Feld Technologies had all kinds of things that could have caused us to fail. In fact, one of the first things we did was hire a half dozen college friends and part time people, and spent money we didn’t have and all of a sudden we were upside down $20,000 and we had no money, and we realized we couldn’t do that anymore because we didn’t have the money to pay the people and we had to get to a place where we’d make money. In the case of the other failures, I think it was pretty clear at some point we were not making real progress." said Brad Feld, Chairman of the NCWIT – also co-chair of the Governor’s Innovation Council. Listen for more insights...Brad also talks about what it takes to create winners.
Bytes: 12940750 > 12/1/08 LISTEN

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Related Links: Foundry Group || Brad's Blog || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Practice || TriCalyx || Keywords: Brad Feld, Foundry Group, NCWIT, Entrepreneurial Tool Box, Dealing with Failing, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, Leadership, Blog - Channels: NCWIT, VC,

594_ Brad Feld and the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box: Part 2 of 2
In this part 2 of 2 Brad Feld said, "My favorite entrepreneurs to work with and invest in their future companies are ones that have had a success, at least one success and one failure. If you’ve had three successes in a row and no failures, you think you’re invincible. Once you’ve had the first failure you realize that success is not a given – you have to work hard for success and there are lots of things that, some under your control, some not under your control that are going to impact your success or failure." Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson had a great conversation with Brad about the learning experiences of a new entrepreneur for the new NCWIT series, The Entrepreneurial Tool Box. Brad went onto say, "There are very clear values that drive leaders. And I think if you want to be a successful as an entrepreneur, studying great leaders, thinking about what makes those leaders great, and thinking about what attributes of that leader you share, or that are comfortable for you to emulate, is an important driver. I think entrepreneurs that don’t think about leadership and don’t understand how they relate to it – because not every entrepreneur is the same kind of leader. Another thing that is really important on either side of the equation is to understand what fear does. Essentially fear freezes you completely from being able to make good decisions. When you’re acting out of fear, you’re not able to step back and figure what’s going on." Brad continues...
Bytes: 14156954 - 12/8/08 LISTEN

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588_ Changing Career Choice From an Attorney to High-Tech Entrepreneur
Lena West, CEO, Founder and Chief Strategist of xynoMedia Technology. This New York based firm helps high growth companies leverage the power of social media, blogs, podcasts and online communities. This interview is one of a continuing series of interviews for the NCWIT Heroes Channel. These entrepreneurial women are great examples that are inspiring to young women and girls who might consider an IT career and is also informational for parents and business leaders. Lena strongly believes that social media is a catalyst to uniting the world’s people and will continue to lead businesses and individuals toward greater levels of environmental accountability, social responsibility and corporate transparency - hence her passion for the medium. She went onto say, "And, that's how I really, truly feel. It's the main reason why I do what I do. With all that's going on in the world, I still believe in the goodness of people. I believe in the power of positivity and higher levels of energy to trump negativity." As a first year college student, Lena was going to be an attorney. That idea was short lived, just not her cup of tea. Eventually she took a job as a secretary with IBM, getting closer to the technology, and learned what she needed to learn and where she could learn about computer technology. She went from help desk work to consulting and eventually to business owner. There's more, listen now...
Related Links: xynoMedia Technology || Lip-Sticking || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Fact Sheet || Find It || Keywords: Lena West,xynoMedia, NCWIT, Social Media, Blogs, Podcasts, Online Communities, Lee Kennedy, Entrepreneur - Channels: NCWIT Bytes: 16498419 - 11/17/08 LISTEN

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562_ Social Entrepreneurism and Microfinancing Goes Global
Social entrepreneur, Jessica Jackley Flannery is a co-founder of Kiva with her husband Matt. Kiva is the first peer-to-peer microloan website, demonstrates how the Internet can facilitate meaningful, positive connections between lenders and entrepreneurs in the developing world and even help us all become micro-financiers. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson interviewed Jessica. She first saw the power and beauty of microfinance while working in rural Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda with Village Enterprise Fund and Project Baobab on impact evaluation and program development. Jessica has worked in the Stanford Center for Social Innovation to launch the inaugural Global Philanthropy Forum, and at Amazon.com, Potentia Media, the International Foundation and World Vision. Jessica has spoken widely on microfinance and social entrepreneurship, and has seen microfinance at work in a variety of communities in more than 30 countries. Jessica is an Ashoka Fellow and has built the Kiva budget from a small startup amount to $45 million. She was asked, "What does a $20 donation do for Kiva?" "Any donation helps us cover our basic operational costs--paying salaries, keeping the lights on, etc. In 2007, for every $1 Kiva receives in donations, we raised another $10 online in loans for the poor." Jessica shares some incredible success stories. Listen for more...
Related Links: KIVA || NCWIT Heros || ASHOKA || NCWIT Practice || Keywords: Jessica Flannery, Kiva, NCWIT, Ashoka Fellow, Microfinance, Social Entrepreneurship > Bytes: 24043836 > - LISTEN 9/29/08

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Female Serial Entrepreneur Raises Millions of Dollars
536_ Here's a story about a female serial entrepreneur who literally fell into becoming a co-founder of a couple companies. Jean Kovacs has raised tons of money and in 2006 her company was bought by Sterling Commerce, an AT&T company. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson interviewed Jean who had some very interesting replies to their questions. When they were discussing some of her best learning experiences Jean replied," I learned the most from bad managers." That's another way of learning vicariously. Today Jean Kovacs is the Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategic Alliances for Sterling Commerce, responsible for driving global strategic alliances, including the AT&T strategic relationship, and all corporate marketing and communications. Kovacs has over 25 years experience directing technology companies and a track record of using her strategic business skills and background to deliver exceptional results with growing enterprises. Jean also is Chair of the board of BUILD, a non-profit that gives entrepreneurial experiences to under-served communities - she believes that all students have the same potential and drive to succeed. The reality, however, is that students in under served neighborhoods begin with limited, and sometimes no, motivation or role models. Listen now.
Related Links: Sterling Commerce || E-Business Article || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Practice || Keywords: Jean Kovac, Sterling Commerce, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, NCWIT Practice, National Center for Women & Information Technology, BUILD - Bytes: 16801857 LISTEN 8/11/08

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523_ Women Will Drive Media Revenue Once it is Mainstreamed
The mobile consumer software industry is a multi-billion dollar market that is slated to grow three-fold to $50 billion worldwide by 2009. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson interviewed Kristin Asleson McDonnell, CEO of LimeLife and serious serial entrepreneur. LimeLife, a company that delivers “fun” right to your mobile device, making women’s lives easier. And, LimeLife is the only publisher of wireless content exclusively focused on the women’s market. The company’s products are forging innovations in the mobile industry based on unique insights about what women seek in mobile entertainment. They entered the market with games. The games include 'Girls Night Out Solitaire', 'Girls Night Out blackjack', 'Hollywood Hangman' and and Lucy's favorite 'Law and Order'. Products include lifestyle tools, entertaining mobile games, Sleek & Chic™ fashion wallpapers and original Daily Dose™ text messages. Lucy, Lee and Larry (the 3 L's) asked Kristen what was on the horizon for LimeLife? She replied, "We are creating 'Lifestyle tools like ‘People Magazine on the phone’. Launching this summer is a web and mobile' community for women centered around shopping, fashion, music – our tagline = “Everything I like, wherever I am.” Kristen has some great ideas for entrepreneurs as well as some motivating thoughts for girls and young people considering high tech. Listen and pass this along to others.
Related Links: Lime Life || Kristin at Stanford|| Heidi Roizen || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Blog || CO Coalition for Gender and IT || NCWIT Practice|| Red Herring || Keywords: Kristin McDonnell, Lime Life, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, NCWIT, Women in IT, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes > - Bytes: Bytes: 19930282 LISTEN 7/14/08

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530_ Entrepreneurship and Ethics Lead to an Extreme Sport
Today Audrey MacLean is focused on working with the new generation of entrepreneurs. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology with NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy and Larry Nelson, president of w3w3.com, interviewed Audrey, Co-Founder & CEO, Network Equipment Technologies. Professor MacLean has a unique track record for entrepreneurial success as a founder, CEO, seed investor, and board member. She has been on the Forbes 'Midas Touch' list and listed by Business Week as one of the 50 most influential business women in America. She was also featured by Forbes in a cover article on Angel Investing. MacLean has over three decades of combined experience in the computer and communications industries. She was a founder of Network Equipment Technologies which went public in 1987 and later co-founded and was CEO of Adaptive which merged with NET in 1993. Building on her own entrepreneurial success, MacLean has been instrumental in helping to launch and grow successful companies through her work as a mentor, capitalist and as a professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford University. She is also an affiliate and advisor to a number of leading Venture Funds. Audrey points out it takes a team, a team you can trust and has a strong leaning toward ethics, entrepreneurship and clean tech...listen now.
Related Links: Audrey MacLean || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Blog || CO Coalition for Gender and IT || NCWIT Practice|| Keywords: Audrey MacLean, Stanford, Network Equipment Technologies, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, NCWIT - Bytes: 17844248 LISTEN 7/28/08

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