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From financial disaster to a multi-million dollar winner

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

Using innovation for social good - NCWIT

Using innovation for social good - NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box
 732_ 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 Ffoundation – 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

Computing Awards - High School Girls, Grades 9-12

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

New technologies are emerging at a faster pace than companies can swallow

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 || w3w3® 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

Technology in remote parts of the Globe: It starts with a boat

716_ Have you ever wondered what technologies are being used in remote places around the world? Terry Morreale, producer and director of the Women in IT Channel and also a senior engineer at Applied Trust Engineering talked to Evi Nemeth about her passions. Evi is a retired university professor, author (currently working on the 6th edition of Unix/Linux System Administration Handbook, co-authored by Trent Hine) with interests in Networks, Data Structures, Unix Tools, C Programming, System Administration with her real world interests being Sailing, Skiing, Hiking. Evi is in Boulder working on finishing the book. Usually you would find her and her yacht (that sleeps six) in the San Blas Islands on the Caribbean side of Panama... if she is not sailing somewhere in another part of the world. Terry and Evi talked about Evi's experiences in these primitive parts of the world. Have you ever wondered what happens to those brilliant professors teaching our new leaders, writing books that are too technical to read, creating startup companies, did you think they just faded away? Not Evi Nemeth, her story is an enchanting tale of a renowned CU Computer Science Professor, retired and sailing the remote locations of our world.
Related Links: Women in IT Channel || Applied Trust Engineering || Girl Geeks || Evi Sailing || Keywords: Evi Nemeth, Terry Morreale, Technology, Unix/Linux System, Administration Handbook, Computer Science, Global > Bytes= 11783421 > 9.14.09 LISTEN

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 ||
Channel: NCWIT >> 21137766 Bytes - 9/7/09

Cloud Computing: Challenges, Choices and How to Make Better Decisions

If you have a business question with a technical component and you feel over your head, check out the 'Dear Ned' series and you'll either find the answer or submit a question and you'll get back an answer. Here's an example. Ned McClain and Trent Hein, co-founders of Applied Trust Engineering were discussing with Larry another crazy week in IT. Trent said, "We've certainly gotten a lot of questions about Cloud Computing. I think a lot driven by this two hour Gmail outage that occurred. I think folks are trying to understand what Cloud Computing means to them and what they can move to it - or should move to it, and what they can't. There are a lot of questions around, "If I move my applications into the Cloud, does that mean I no longer need system administrators?" Ned replied, "That's a great question and a difficult question because Cloud Computing is such an overused buzz word. Just like Web 2.0, it seems like everybody's got one. And so it's hard to sift through all of the marketing hype and know what cloud computing means to me. But, maybe there's a good way to categorize it into two main buckets... One is outsourced infra structure, and maybe that's called 'Utility Computing' where you lease a server or access to a network, or storage - low level infra structure services. And the other is outsourced applications, often called Application As a Service. That's more the Gmail/Google apps even Yahoo mail paradigm. And those are really different paradigms. One model is that you're leasing tier-one infrastructure and managing it yourself essentially." Listen for more discussion and answers...
Related Links: Ask Your Own Questions || Dear Ned Channel || Women in IT || Applied Trust || >>Channel: ATE 6059470 bytes 9/7/09 LISTEN

" My volunteer work helps me be a better consultant"

599_ " My volunteer work helps me be a better consultant", says Lucy Vento
Terry Morreale, senior engineer at Applied Trust and producer and director of the Women in IT Channel interviewed Lucy Vento about her two passions: her career at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and her work at Colorado Youth at Risk (CYAR). Lucy has 20 years of experience in the information technology industries. She is a Principal for CSC Consulting in the Supply Chain Management practice where she specializes in global logistics, inventory management and wireless enablement applications at a variety of client sites. Lucy has been involved with CYAR for five years. Lucy went onto explain, " It is a mentoring organization for teens at risk of dropping out of high school. We teach the adults, mentors and teens in the program a variety of listening and personal transformation tools that they can use to make better choices for their lives. I have been a mentor for 2 years, a group leader for 2 years and now I am a certified facilitator. I use the CYAR tools frequently in my consulting practice work. It’s been very cool how both seemingly different environments I have been so involved in have come together so elegantly for me especially in the last year. My work at Colorado Youth at Risk has taught me to become a better consultant." Lucy has always been very involved with the community. Lucy is the founding president of the Colorado RFID Alliance and was the 2001 President of the Denver Telecom Professionals (renamed to Communications Technology Professionals). She was an adjunct faculty member for four years at the University of Denver. Listen for some win/win ideas that will help you in your career as well as benefit the community. They both give some great advice in Larry's book, Mastering Change in the Midst of Chaos.
Related Links: Computer Sciences Corporation || Colorado Youth at Risk || Applied Trust || Women in IT || Mastering Change || Keywords: Lucy Vento, Computer Sciences Corporation, CSC, Colorado Youth at Risk, CYAR, Terry Morreale, Applied Trust, Women in IT, Consulting
Channels: WiIT Bytes: 10572176 > 1.5.09 LISTEN

Brad Feld and the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box

Brad Feld and the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box
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." Chairman of the NCWIT – also co-chair of the Governor’s Innovation Council. 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. Listen for more insights...Brad and Lucy also offer some great insights about change in Larry's new book, Mastering Change.
Related Links: Foundry Group || Brad's Blog || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Practice || Mastering Change || At www.w3w3.com Channels: NCWIT, VC, Bytes: 12940750 > - 8/10/09 LISTEN: Part 1 of 2; Listen Part 2 of 2
- Part 1 of 2 - Part 2 of 2

The history of the Telluride Tech Festival now comes to Boulder

696_ The history of the Telluride Tech Festival now comes to Boulder
The Telluride Tech Festival is '@ Boulder' this year which is a great opportunity to involve some local folks here, and with some of the changes in the economy it's a little more accessible. Larry talked with Sarah McClain, Trent Hein and Ned McClain about the great news for Front Range technology enthusiasts. Larry asked Sarah to give us an idea of what this event was about. "We're talking about the annual Telluride Tech Festival which was an event we founded in Telluride in 2000. It was founded on the idea that Telluride was sort of an incubator of inventions. In 1891 Nicola Tessla, George Westinghouse and L.L. Nunn invented the first commercial grade alternating current power plant in Telluride. That's why we say the beginning of the technological revolution began there. Our event invites technological innovators from around the world to come and present their ideas to us in a small, intimate environment, and it's very interactive. Inside the event and even outside the event we have opportunities to interact with the honorees and sort of foster discussion and ideas." Some of the past honorees are Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist; Vinton Cerf, known as the 'Father of the Internet'; Murray Gellman, a Nobel Prize Laureate; and Jill Tarter, she heads up SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). This year it's in Boulder at the NCAR Mesa Top Lab, a really excellent venue. So, mark your calendars for July 30th, that's a Thursday evening and we're going to gather at 5:30pm. You need to RSVP. We'll see you there...
Related Links: Tech Fest RSVP || Tech Festible History || Applied Trust || Dear Ned || Keywords: Telluride Tech Festival, Boulder, Sarah McClain, Trent Hein, Ned McClain, NCAR, Applied Trust, Dear Ned > Channel: ATE 6225609 bytes 7/20/09 LISTEN