This tweet from Marc Andreesen and RT'd by Dave McClure caught my eye:
Great roundup of 10 essays (including one by me) on building things: medium.com/@brendanbaker/… @brendanbaker
I clicked the link because as an entrepreneur who is building a company, and chairperson for a nonprofit organization that helps people "build" things, it was clearly something I'm interested in.
I scrolled through the list to see which authors were included and I experienced a flashback to when I viewed the Apple Executive Team webpage. I'm at a point now where I just find this kind of writing either lazy or assume the person doesn't know any women. I can't do anything about the lazy part but I try to do my part in highlighting women that are doing really fantastic work.
I will pause here to mention that I do admire many of the men that wrote those essays. I am not a "man-hater" as some women get called for wanting to close the gender gap. I'm married to a man, I bore a son and am quite fond of the male sex.
My reaction was to immediately tweet back to the author, Brendan Baker, asking where the women in the list were. It's not the first time I've asked that question and I know it won't be my last.
Dave McClure of 500 Startups asked me for a list so he could RT it. I thought to myself, why should I write the list? I'm not the one that needs to do research; I highlight women building fantastic things and female writers regularly.
Then Dave threw down the gauntlet and said that if I didn't provide a list I was copping out. I am not one to back down from a challenge and decided to pause working on my startup, eating breakfast and spending a wonderful Sunday morning with my family, to write this post.
So, in response to Dave McClure and to school Brendan Baker, I have created a list of women who inspire me and have shaped a lot of my entrepreneurial thinking for both my for profit and nonprofit work.
From Inspiration to Innovation by Tina Seelig
I have listened to every single one of Stanford Ecorner's podcasts. The driving force behind the series is Tina Seelig. She is an entrepreneur, author and professor. Every word out of her mouth makes so much sense. She has a new entrepreneurial framework that she has been working on called the Inventure Cycle. "It includes definitions and relationships for the process of bringing ideas to life... and provides a scaffolding of skills, beginning with imagination, leading to a collective increase in entrepreneurial activity." I highly recommend listening to the podcast if you are an entrepreneur.
In Conversation With by Kelly Hoey
One of the loudest cheerleaders for entrepreneurial women on Twitter has to be Kelly. If she believes in what you are doing the world is going to hear about it and then some. She interviews women professionals, has been on countless entrepreneur panels and is working hard to close the gender gap. She's also a fellow Canadian so she gets extra points for that.
STEMinist by Ann Hoang
For the past few years I have learned about a variety of women in Science Technology Engineering and Math from the STEMinist interviews. These are the women doing their thing and not the three or four that constantly get talked about in the news. This is the place to go to learn about super cool people like Erica Moulton, a female marine technologist working on an experiment called "Fish In Space." The mission of the site is to increase the visibility of women in STEM, promote and elevate the perspective of women in these traditionally underrepresented fields, and encourage younger women and girls to pursue careers in STEM.
Why the Maker Movement is Key to America's Future with Stephanie Santoso
I can't express how happy it makes me that a female was appointed to the position of Chief Maker at the White House. Equally as awesome is that the CTO position is now filled by Megan Smith, but I haven't had the pleasure of meeting her yet. It is incredibly important for young people and girls to know they are capable of being creators and not just consumers. Stephanie is one of the forward thinkers at the Office of Science and Technology Policy that coordinated the first White House Maker Faire. She gives me so much hope that we can change things at the highest level. Follow Stephanie on Twitter so you don't miss out on what's happening in the maker world at the federal level.
Using Lean Startup to Do Plenty with Very Little by Kimberly Bryant
Anyone in nonprofit that teaches kids about technology knows who Kimberly Bryant is. Her organization, Black Girls Code, is "the Girl Scouts of technology." Both Kimberly and I started our nonprofits around the same time and neither one of us knew what we were doing when we started them. I really like how she is using a framework for startups with her nonprofit organization. She is a tireless leader and an inspiration to anyone that wants to make a difference.
Hack Education by Audrey Watters
The industry I work in is education technology and so obviously I have to read everything Audrey writes. She is a pragmatist, a contrarian, snarky and makes us all think really hard until it hurts about the future of education.
Internationalization and Localization at Wikipedia - Alolita Sharma
As a huge fan of Wikipedia I was pretty excited to meet Alolita at OSCON a few years ago. I tend to rub shoulders with people way smarter than me and she is one of them. Plus she is humble which I like because I'm Canadian. Case in point, she is in charge of internationalization and localization for Wikipedia. I remember when I worked at
Intel's Sharp Eyed Social Scientist is Genevieve Bell
I remember being in the audience at a small conference that included speakers Mitchell Baker, Sal Khan and "Can't Touch This" MC Hammer. All of the speakers were great but Genevieve was incredible. I was amazed that someone with her background was at a company like Intel and how she hypothesizes and thinks about how people interact with technology. At the time I was working on a skunk works project and I totally changed my approach to how a user would interface with my prototype.
I work with and am friends with many people at the Mozilla Foundation. I don't know a single company that has so many happy employees. Everyone is consistently energetic and truly believes in the work that they do. If you have ever attended MozFest you know exactly what I'm talking about. Whatever Mitchell's secret sauce is, it's working and I recommend learning more about how she shaped such a wonderful social good organization.
Adafruit is Limor Fried
Limor is a pink haired engineering goddess to so many in the DIY world. She's been on the cover of Wired, she runs a highly successful company, AdaFruit, and she invents new things all the time. The Adafruit blog is a must read if you want to keep up with the newest of the new in hardware. And what's extra cool is that many of the authors on the blog are women.
So, there you go, Dave. Please help Dave and I add some more to the list in the comments below. Thank you!
