Awards

How to Deliver a Winning Tech Conference Pitch

Delivering a winning tech conference pitch is akin to cutting the perfect diamond — the planning, cleaving, sawing, brute polishing and final inspection all add up to the ultimate sum of all your preparation….

By Sam Frons (Founder & CEO, Addicaid)

Such was my moment at last week’s 2013 LAUNCH Festival, where I demoed Addicaid, a social good app whose mission is to help addicts and alcoholics in recovery develop a personal treatment program. Read More »

Female Founders To Watch: TechFellow Award Winners

By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

TechFellow Awards is an annual startup investment program to honor those innovating in high-tech entrepreneurship.

Supporters of the TechFellow Awards include the Founders Fund, TechCrunch, and NEA. There are four categories – general management, disruptive innovation, product design & marketing, and engineering leadership. Each category is awarded five winners.

This year, there were more women than ever winning awards, including former TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde and Bit.ly Chief Scientist Hilary Mason. Read More »

Meet The Winning 2012 Women 2.0 PITCH Competition Teams

By Patricia Araque (Co-Founder, Ellas 2.0)

The 2012 Women 2.0 PITCH Conference has proved to be so impressive that a thousand people, mostly women, gathered yesterday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA to hear inspiring presentations by entrepreneurs.

Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake and ZipCar co-founder Robin Chase headlined a day full of talent, ideas, networking and world-changing aspirations to innovate with great products.

Here are the four winning teams from the 2012 PITCH Startup Competition: Read More »

2012 PITCH Startup Competition Finalists Announced

By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

The run-up to Women 2.0 PITCH Conference on February 14, 2012 is defined by Women 2.0′s fifth annual Startup Competition for early-stage tech startups.

Watch the finalists of the 2012 Women 2.0 Startup Competition pitch live on February 14. Hear first-hand feedback from panels of real investors on what makes a successful pitch for investment.

Here are the 10 finalists of the 2012 Women 2.0 PITCH Startup Competition: Read More »

Nominate “Women 2.0″ for “Biggest Social Impact” Today!

By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

TechCrunch contributor Vivek Wadhwa identified a catalyzing moment at the Crunchies, the glittering awards show for the tech set hosted by TechCrunch.

His wife accompanied him to the Crunchies awards show and asked the perennial question, “But where are the women?”

Indeed — the entire night of announcements, celebrations and awards one stop short of a ticker tape parade — featured only one woman CEO onstage. That woman was Read More »

PITCH Night 2010 Awards Women-Led Startups

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. (November 4, 2010) — Women 2.0 PITCH Night brought the finalists of the Women 2.0 Startup Competition onstage to compete for top prize at the high-energy event attended by 300 entrepreneurs, investors and startup enthusiasts.

We at Women 2.0 never cease to be amazed by the range of startup pitches at PITCH Night. They’re not like Facebook (in a good way) – these ideas are different, the teams are different, the reach is different. By the end of PITCH Night, winners had been announced: Apply in the Sky to manage your b-school applications, mobile infrastructure of “top ups” to transfer money between consumers at Prepay Nation, and last but not least, BioLumber plastic that is as strong as steel but as light as lumber, saving the world from the plastic vortex!

Each year PITCH reminds us a few things:

  • Innovation is everywhere — Submissions for this year’s 4th annual Women 2.0 Startup Competition came in from 78 cities in 12 countries — Not just in the Internet cafes of Silicon Valley!
  • Female founders are innovating — We get more submissions for PITCH each year!
  • Women 2.0 PITCH Director Aihui Ong, who is also the Founder & CEO of Love With Food has overseen four years of PITCH Competitions remarks, “All it takes is passion to solve a small problem — to germinate and bloom into an innovative business.”

Women 2.0 CEO Shaherose Charania talks about the winners of PITCH Night on TechCrunch here.

Diane Greene and Arielle Patrice Scott at Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010
Diane Greene (right) was the Founding CEO at Silicon Valley tech company VMware. She shares her story with Arielle Scott (Founder, GenJuice) and the audience at Women 2.0 PITCH Night – “VMware initially took 6 hours to boot Windows on Linux. Don’t give up on your big ideas.” Diane Greene’s advice to female entrepreneurs: you too could start a VMware (via @Xconomy).
Chiara Piccinotti and Emily Chiu at Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010
Finalists for the web portion of Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010, Chiara Piccinotti and Emily Chiu of Apply in the Sky deliver the winning pitch and win the judge’s vote.
Cleantech finalist BioLumber CEO Kristin Kaune pitches at Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010
Cleantech finalist BioLumber CEO Kristin Kaune delivers the winning pitch at Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010 to win a prized investor meeting with Esther Dyson!
Judges Cindi Choi, Cynthia Ringo, and Rachel Pike listen to cleantech pitches at the 2010 Women 2.0 PITCH Night
Judges for the cleantech panel from left: Cindi Choi (Corporate Development, SunPower), Cynthia Ringo (Managing Director, DBL Investors), and Rachel Pike (Analyst, Draper Fisher Jurvetson) listen to pitches from Aesir Metals, BioLumber, and Chouette at Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010.
Obopay Founder and CEO Carol Realini shares with the audience that she has raised $200M to date in venture funding
Obopay founder and CEO Carol Realini (pictured right) tells the audience she has raised $200M to date in venture funding. Carol Realini advises not to be a “lone ranger” and shared her 10-5-3-1 recipe to venture success. Get 10 great meetings with investors, and 5 of them go through due dilligence. Get 3 good term sheets, because you need to have choices. In the end, it’s 1 bank transfer!
Lesa Mitchell from Kauffman Foundation awards Jessica Bishop of Prepay Nation winner of the mobile category of Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010
Lesa Mitchell from the Kauffman Foundation announces the winner of the 2010 Women 2.0 PITCH Night for the mobile category as Jessica Bishop of Prepay Nation.
From left, Kelley Boyd, Alexis Ringwald, Lynn Jurich, and Shaherose Charania at Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010
From left, Kelley Boyd (Managing Director for New York, Women 2.0), Alexis Ringwald (Co-Founder, Valence Energy – acquired by Serious Materials), Lynn Jurich (Co-Founder & President, SunRun), and Shaherose Charania (Co-Founder & CEO, Women 2.0) at PITCH Night 2010. Quotable quotes from Lynn: “I talk about solar construction with SunRun, and my husband talks about beauty products.” Another crowd favorite: “We decided to approach our marriage like a portfolio: one of us works the steady job and one starts a company.”
Special thanks to Twilio for letting us use their office space as the venue for Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010 -- and for providing an awesome Twilio Lounge for Women 2.0 guests
Special thanks to Twilio for donating their office space for Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010 — and providing free WiFi for all! The Twilio Lounge (pictured) was also appreciated by the Women 2.0 community.
Multitasking at Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010
The Women 2.0 community is a multi-tasking bunch, well-versed in cloud computing as well as various OS and iOS devices – three different ones pictured here.
Baat Enosh and Aihui Ong from Women 2.0 smile for the camera at Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010
Pictured from left, Baat Enosh and Aihui Ong of Women 2.0 at the 4th Annual PITCH Night in San Francisco.
Women 2.0 PITCH Night was catered by Back-A-Yard in Menlo Park
Catered dinner thanks to Back-A-Yard Caribbean American Grill in Menlo Park — the curried goat
was a surprise hit!
Men are welcome to Women 2.0 events! The advancement of women in entrepreneurship and business will not be achieved without everyone's support. Thanks David Weekly!
The advancement of women in entrepreneurship and business will not be achieved without everyone’s support. Thanks David Weekly!

Special thanks to Pokin Yeung and Julie Blaustein for photographing Women 2.0 PITCH Night 2010.

Women 2.0 Founders Named “Most Influential Women in Technology 2010″ in Fast Company Magazine


But we weren’t the only ones! We recognized a lot of Women 2.0 entrepreneurs on Fast Company’s “Most Influential Women in Technology 2010″ list:

Jen Bekman (Founder, 20×200)
Coming of age during the tech boom, Jen Bekman worked her way up through the online ranks – New York Online, Electric Minds, Netscape, Disney/GO Networks, AOL, Meetup – only to split the scene for what seemed like career derailment. In 2003 she founded her own eponymous brick-and-mortar art gallery … But it was actually a percolator for her next move. Read more at Fast Company.
» Watch the “Women 2.0 In Conversation with Jen Bekman” video here.

Clara Shih (Founder, Hearsay Labs)
She wrote the book on social media marketing – and now it’s used as a textbook at Harvard Business School. Released last April, The Facebook Era is the Bible for businesses wanting to increase their sales and consumer base through social networks. The San Francisco-based startup just raised another round of capital and plans to double its staff soon. Read more at Fast Company.
» Watch the “Women 2.0 In Conversation with Clara Shih” video here.

Claire Boonstra (Co-Founder, Layar)
Trained in civil engineering, Boonstra comes from a technical family and originally wanted to be a designer (she says in an interview that she wanted at one point to make the “Boonstra Bridge”). But when the world of architecture didn’t quite click, she veered into tech, starting at i-mode, an early precursor to cellphone internet browsing. … The idea for Layar was sparked. Read more at Fast Company.
» Claire Boonstra named in “Female Founders to Watch in Mobile”.

Danae Ringlemann (Co-Founder, IndieGoGo)
After years as an equity researcher studying business models of entertainment companies, Ringelmann co-founded IndieGoGo, a crowdfunding Web site for independent films. For filmmakers, IndieGoGo is a way to raise supplemental funds; for contributors – whose donations typically range from $50 to $500 – it’s a way to get perks like a name credit in the film. Read more at Fast Company.
» Listen to the “In Conversation with Danae Ringlemann” podcast here.

Caterina Fake (Co-Founder, Hunch)
Ever wondered where to grab lunch? Or which DVD set to buy? Or even what to wear on — gasp! — a first date? “Just ask Hunch,” says Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake, whose latest startup helps users make decisions by comparing what it knows about them to what it knows about others like them. The site has attracted more than 1.5M users and roughly $12M in funding… Read more at Fast Company.
» Watch the “In Conversation with Caterina Fake” video here.

Annie Chang (Co-Founder, LOLapps)
Don’t be fooled by the name of her startup. Annie Chang is pioneering a very serious business venture. Two years after the launch of LOLapps, Chang has finally published games that approach her ideal: In Band of Heroes, for example, if a user wins a war, every friend who joined his army shares the spoils; in Diva Life, users pair off to “clash” with other high-heeled avatars. Read more at Fast Company.
» Annie Chang spoke at a Women 2.0 event at UC Berkeley here.

Shinyoung Park (Founder, Funji)
In real life, most teens and tweens can’t hit the clubs or crash late-night parties. (We’re ignoring Miley Cyrus.) But on Funji, the first avatar-based social networking app for the iPhone, “they express themselves to friends in a virtual world, whenever and wherever they want,” says creator Shinyoung Park, who was a winner of Facebook’s fbFund competition last year. Read more at Fast Company.
» Watch the Women 2.0 “In Conversation with Shinyoung Park” video here.

Alexis Ringwald (Co-Founder, Valence Energy Group)
At Valence Energy, which she cofounded, Ringwald creates software to help decentralize the power grid into a network of smart microgrids, or communities that consume energy produced nearby and on-site. Eventually, Ringwald hopes to take her work full-circle, bringing microgrid breakthroughs to India, where on-the-grid power can be both inefficient and unreliable. Read more at Fast Company.
» Alexis Ringwald named in “Female Founders Successes of 2009″.

Susan Wu (Co-Founder, Ohai)
The U.S. virtual goods market will jump 60% this year to $1.6 billion, and analysts estimate worldwide annual revenue could reach $10 billion — the equivalent of Hollywood’s 2009 box-office earnings. Founder of online-gaming firm Ohai Susan Wu knew that virtual goods (products that exist only online) made real money, and she went after the digital wares like a hot commodity. Read more at Fast Company.
» Susan Wu named in “Female Founders to Watch in Social Gaming”.

Laura Fitton (Founder, OneForty)
Now she’s flexing her tech-trend-spotting skills once more by founding OneForty, an app store for Twitter. The service catalogues and curates the best extensions and apps for the microblogging service through a community of users who share and rate tools. Fitton has already gathered more than $2M in funding. If anybody can make it work for them, we think it’s you, Laura. Read more at Fast Company.
» Laura Fitton named in “Female Founders Successes of 2009″.

And all that talk about needing more women in venture capital? Cindy is here to help.

Cindy Padnos (Founder, Illuminate Ventures)
Illuminate Ventures is a VC firm focused on early-stage, high-tech investing, with a special interest in supporting women in business. “We invest in great opportunities, period. We try to capture some very interesting – and not very sought after-deals, where other firms don’t recognize the value because it looks different.” Her investing portfolio ranges from Internet advertising and 3D browsing to SaaS applications and SEO management. Read more at Fast Company.

Debriefing 2010 Mobile World Congress (Barcelona)

The numbers: 50,000 attendees, 8 buildings, 5 days. Each year, the mobile ecosystem descends on Barcelona to establish the state of affairs and predict the future. Mobile World Congress brings a buzz to Barcelona and everyone was involved, from the taxi drivers to the nearby cafes, from the metro to the tapas bars. Read More »

Join us February 14-16 for mobile mania in Europe

Will you be at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona? Follow Shaherose Charania’s plancast to see where you can find Women 2.0 while at the congress.

Find Women 2.0 and Ellas 2.0 in Barcelona at:
- Mobile Sunday (Sunday, February 14th, 2010)
- Mobile Premier Awards (Monday, February 15th, 2010) Honoring the Winners for Best Female Entrepreneur in Mobile
- Mobile World Congress (Monday, February 15th through 18th, 2010)

Here is the final program of this years’ Mobile Premier Awards which is coming up this Monday, February 15th, 2010 in Spain. Besides the classic MPA in Innovation live 3-minute pitches, this year the awards will announce the winners of the other awards in collaboration with partners like Women 2.0.

For this year’s event, the keynote presentation is on the story of Admob. The event host will be Mark Palmer, Founder of Maverick Planet Ltd. Check the jury that will choose the winners among the 20 finalists. So what are you waiting for? Book your seat now!

Join Women 2.0 at DEMOfall 09 in San Diego next week

DEMO is known globally for having THE MOST SUCCESSFUL EXITS. Companies like Apple, TiVO, SixApart, Symantec, VMWare, Salesforce, eTrade and more debuted at DEMO.

DEMOfall 09 is about to unveil 70 products and prototypes, honor notable DEMO alumni and provide you with tremendous networking opportunities with VC’s, corporate buyers, technology innovators and  press…and you’ll miss it all if you don’t attend DEMOfall 09!

Last-minute discount code for DEMO tickets - We have deeply discounted DEMO tickets for $695 here — keep in mind that regular price DEMO tickets are $2,995!

Are you a bootstrapping entrepreneur?
If so, we may have an even BETTER deal for you! Attend DEMO next week for only $350!

  1. You must be a founder of a startup (female)
  2. Tell us about your startup (in 160 characters)
  3. Tell us why you should be selected to go to DEMO next week (in less than 100 words)

Write to partners@women2.org by MIDNIGHT on Friday night, September 18th, 2009 Saturday night, September 19th, 2009.

The first 5 qualifying entries win the super-cheap DEMO tickets. Southwest airlines flights are only $39 each way to San Diego! You can find Women 2.0′s @shaherose and @aihui at DEMO next week.

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