Women in Leadership Videos

Did you miss the Technovation Challenge's Women in Leadership panel at Andreessen Horowitz last month? Never fear, as we have posted short videos from the panel and backstage interviews, that are packed full of the insights and wisdom of some of Silicon Valley's most influential female movers and shakers.

Highlights include:

• Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco speaks about the challenge of women having to prove themselves over and over again and the integration of family, work, and hobbies.
• Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Location & Local Services at Google recounts the mentor who changed her life, sleeping under her desk, pulling all-nighters, and working 130 hour weeks.
• Sandy Jen, Co-Founder and CTO of Meebo shares her personal vision and thoughts on women not being confident enough and gives advice on how to build a brilliant and inspired team.
• Angela Benton, Founder of the NewME Accelerator talks about her vision of changing the tech industry, the value of diversity, and refusing to let others define her life after getting pregnant at 16.
• Freada Kapor Klein, Founder of the Level Playing Field Institute, speaks about hard work vs. luck, the importance of being yourself, and having a mentor who reminds you who you are.

Become a Mentor

The panelists are living proof that having a mentor is a major key to success, but the flip side of finding an amazing mentor is being a mentor to the next generation of female tech entrepreneurs.

The Technovation Challenge is looking for female mentors from the tech and entrepreneurship industries in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles to mentor a team of high school girls for ten weeks this spring. You don't have to be a programmer, anyone in the field could be a mentor, as there are teaching assistants who help the girls with technical issues.

Being a mentor not only helps the girls, but it benefits the mentors too. Last year's mentors said that the program expanded their network of women working in technology and increased their understanding of entrepreneurship. Here's what they had to say:

“Professionally, this has been a great course in entrepreneurship. My favorite lecture was the Pitch lecture. I have been to many workshops and seminars in the past, and I think this one was top notch. I have to do public speaking a bit more, and I will take some of his advice and apply it.”

“I've been so inspired that earlier this month I created a startup at Startup Weekend for Education in San Francisco, and I still have a team working on it, but that's not it. I just found out I got into Founder Institute, a part-time incubator for tech startups!”

“The [Technovation Challenge] experience was absolutely amazing, and my group of girls inspired me to start something of my own… watching my high school team code such an awesome app made me realize that I could do it too!” (This mentor was also accepted into the Founder Institute).

Sign up today! https://technovationchallenge.org/get-involved/mentors/

Technovation 2012 will be held in Berkeley, San Francisco, Mountain View, San Jose, Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles.

This work has been made possible by the generous support of the Office of Naval Research.