Startup.Synergy is the annual event for the Citrix Startup Accelerator.
By Jeremiah Shackelford (Marketing & Operations, Citrix Startup Accelerator)

I’m not sure if she’s been made an honorary mentor for Women 2.0 yet but I’m infatuated thru and thru with Siri. Smart, resourceful, awesome accent, I mean what’s not to love? I hope she comes to Startup.Synergy, and I hope you do as well.

Startup.Synergy is the annual event for the Citrix Startup Accelerator. We do early-stage corporate venturing in enterprise-focused startups. We help bridge them from seed stage to Series A or acquisition faster. Our offering in doing so is $250K, an office in Silicon Valley, and assistance in enterprise customer validation.

But back to Startup.Synergy.

The day is jam packed. It’s the Citrix CEO keynote in the morning, lunch in the Expo, an open innovation overview, startup demos from the portfolio, an investor panel, and the award of $100,000 to our next investment. These last two deserve a bit more clarity. Matt Marshall of VentureBeat will moderate the panel with Paul Weinstein (Azure Capital), Jonathan Siegel (RightVentures), Frank Artale (Ignition Partners), and Carl Showalter (Opus Ventures) discussing the implications that it takes less time and less capital to build meaningful web technologies today. The $100K will be awarded to the winner of the Startup.Synergy Challenge and our first investment of the year. If you would like to come, please use code “150WEDF” and register here.

I mention first because we hope to make at least a dozen in 2012. Among them, I hope there is at least one woman co-founder. I do so for balance mostly. Enterprise technologies tend not to be considered as sexy as consumer applications, but revenue very much is. Further, the opportunity to make meaningful improvements to web infrastructure and software is far more amplified.

My point is that the net impact can be far larger, and thus, the female 50% of the population should absolutely be represented in its creation and success. I hope part of my net impact is to help balance that ratio in the portfolio of a company even as technical as Citrix. That, and to help Siri in any way I can. 😉

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.
Photo credit: Satchell Drakes
About the guest blogger: Jeremiah Shackelford runs Marketing & Operations for Citrix Startup Accelerator. The Citrix Startup Accelerator does early-stage corporate venturing in enterprise-focussed startups. Jeremiah has worked in the Valley for companies S, M, & L. Prior, he made stops in academic entrepreneurship, DC legal, and arctic research. Follow him on Twitter at @jshack.