Ada's List: Archive

There are more men on corporate boards named John, Robert, William or James than there are women on boards altogetherwashingtonpost.com

Let’s just think about that for a moment.

Feb 26, 20153 notes

#womenintech #boards

“A huge majority of women (80%) want creative, independent job roles. Only 30% of them believe tech jobs can provide this. When a study asked boys to think of words they associated with computers, they came up with “design”, “games” and “video”. The girls? “Typing”, “maths” and “boredom”.”—Want a creative career? Do the maths and put the tech industry at the top by Belinda Parmar in the Guardian

Feb 26, 2015

#womenintech #creativity #technology

Feb 24, 201591 notes

#womenintech

“Because diversity is such an important topic, it must be prioritized early in a company’s life. As Lisa put it, “I’m a believer that you have to start thinking about diversity early, otherwise it just becomes really, really difficult the bigger that you grow. What you want is to grow your company where diversity is one of your core principles and core values, because trying to inject it later on is inorganic and it’s off putting to people.” Start today.”—Lessons from the USV Diversity Summit

Feb 24, 2015

#diversity #hiring

Bullish on indie.vcbryce.vc

Bryce asked why I thought the announcement had hit such a chord with female founders.I sent a list.

Feb 24, 2015

#womenintech #indievc

How To Grow The Number Of Top-Notch Women Engineers At Your Startuplinkedin.com

Everyone in tech acknowledges that we need more women working in our startups. Studies show that organizations are stronger when they are diverse. In the four years since our firm launched the KPCB Fellows program – which identifies the best college-age talent, pairs them with one of our portfolio companies, and connects them to our network – the two of us researched and carried out several approaches to increase the number of female engineers in the program. This year, we will welcome our largest percentage of female engineering Fellows, all while holding to the highest standards

Feb 24, 2015

#womenintech #KPCB

“

When a boy – let’s call him Rush (like Rush Limbaugh) — heard my friend had interned at Facebook, his mouth dropped. “Wow! Facebook! You must be really smart!” He then turned to me and asked the exact same question: What did you do this summer?

Except when I responded the same — “Facebook” — I got a completely different response. “Oh… well then I should have applied for that internship.”

”—

A female computer science student at Stanford: ‘floored’ by the sexism in Fortune

Also check out the Women of Silicon Valley collection on Medium, started by Lea Saligado (featured in the article linked to above)

“For its first seven months in business, GapJumpers gathered data from nearly 1,200 auditions across 13 companies—attempting to see how the numbers stacked up when the early stages of hiring were done blindly. They found that male applicants raised concerns about having to prove themselves in a blind test more often than women. Once the blind challenge was completed, the gender breakdown of those candidates hired was 58% women, 42% men.”—Can blind auditions finally solve tech’s diversity hiring problem? by Jane Porter in Fast Company

Feb 23, 2015

“Skateboarding can teach Silicon Valley what not to do, like a message from the future warning, “Here’s what happens when a domain in which women once thrived decides women aren’t worthy.” Yes, it’s complicated and yes, the sport became more extreme, but there’s a world of difference between a sport that says, There aren’t many women and one that adds … we made sure.”—Silicon Valley Thinks It Can Learn From Skater Culture. It’s a Terrible Idea by Kathy Sierra in Wired

Feb 23, 2015

#womenintech

Women are leaving the tech industry in droveslatimes.com

Women in tech say filling the pipeline of talent won’t do much good if women keep quitting

Feb 23, 2015

#womenintech

“Ada’s List is really an amazing network full of AWESOME ladies. I receive the Daily Digest and, trust me, I open it every day. I have never done it before with any Daily Digest.”—

8 Smart and Welcoming Women Who Helped Me Find My Way, by Francesca Piazza on Medium

Thanks Francesca for the shout-out, we are thrilled you think so highly of the list!

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Inspiring Female Foundersproducthunt.com

A Collection of products from Female Founders

Feb 20, 2015

#founders #womenintech #producthunt

“First, many women brought to the boardroom, and to decision making, a different set of perspectives, experiences, angles, and viewpoints than their male counterparts. Board members also observed that female directors are “more likely than their male counterparts to probe deeply into the issues at hand” by asking more questions, leading to more robust intra-board deliberations. Most women appeared to be uninterested in presenting a façade of knowledge and were loath to make decisions they did not fully understand (something recent McKinsey research suggests might be fairly common). Board members observed that female directors tended to have a different style of engagement, seeking the opinions of others and trying to ensure that everyone in the boardroom take part in the discussion.”—Women Directors Change How Boards Work in Harvard Business Review

Feb 20, 2015

#boards #women

“There are very few role models at the CEO level, and even internationally even less role models. So you just have to, you have to get good mentors, you have to really plug in to the networks. I myself, never plugged in to the women’s networks or anything. I’m now quite involved with that because I do believe in it and I think it’s one way to help individuals get mentored and be able to grasp all the way to the top if that’s what they want.”—Coaching the next generation of women leaders, with Amanda Mesler in Big Think.

Feb 18, 2015

#mentoring #leadership

Scholarship aims to increase women in computing – Microsoft Research Connections Blog – Site Home – MSDN Blogsblogs.msdn.com

Microsoft Research collaborates with computer scientists at academic and scientific institutions to promote advances in computing technologies and research.

Feb 18, 2015

#scholarships #womenintech

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Feb 18, 2015

#women #government #inspiration #stem

54 women who rocked the tech worlduk.businessinsider.com

There are loads of women tech leaders making huge contributions and having fabulous careers.

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From Ponies to Pitches – Being on a Digital Business Accelerator | Create Hubcreate-hub.com

Being Part of a Digital Business Accelerator: What is it like to be a creative company in a business accelerator? Rebecca Evans writes.

Really useful post – well done Ada’s Lister Rebecca Evans!

Feb 18, 20151 note

#brag

The forgotten women who helped build Waterloo Bridgetheguardian.com

Campaigners want blue plaque in honour of female labourers who helped construct Waterloo Bridge

Well done Ada’s Lister Cassie Robinson and team!

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“I believe that there’s a dynamic inside these firms that makes women not want to stay,” says Bonnie Crater, CEO of Full Circle CRM and former senior vice president at Salesforce, Netscape, and Genesys. “I think the dynamic is subtle, that it’s often hard to put your finger on, but I believe that there’s a lot of really confident women who were VCs and have left venture because the environment they worked in is not optimized to make it easy for them to function.”—Why the few women venture capitalists often give up in Fast Company

Feb 16, 20152 notes

#vc #womenintech #investing

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Feb 13, 2015

#kickstarter #womenintech

Women in Tech Who Are Shaking Up Silicon Valleytech.co

Beyond the household names, there is an ever-growing group of other women in tech leading and founding tech startups.

Feb 13, 2015

Feb 13, 2015160 notes

“Crash Override was founded because of Quinn and Lifschitz’s experience on the sharp end of things, but isn’t really intended to be an extension of that experience or the environment which bred it. The mission statement is an open and unbiased one: if you’re suffering abuse online, we can try to help, or direct you towards people who can. Inevitably, though, they’ve still been flooded by spam, unfounded accusations, DDOS attacks – all the go-to tools in the arsenal of the very people they’re combating.”—Crash Override: ‘Our mission is to return control to the victim’ – the support group set up by Zoe Quinn and Alex Lifschitz

Feb 11, 2015

“I’m prone, as Pierson is, to look at gender inequity in comments and think, “Uh-oh, there’s something wrong here” — women should be participating, women should chime in. But if I, as an Internet-using lady, think about my own commenting habits, I see the problem less as some kind of failure to speak up, on my part, and more as a statement on commenting. I’m not trying to be polite or to shy from a debate. Rather, I don’t comment on Web sites for the same reason I don’t watch wrestling, or go to strip clubs, or do any number of other things that men statistically do far more than women: I think it’s stupid, and I’m not into it.”—Why women don’t leave comments online by Caitlin Dewey in the Washington Post

Feb 10, 20156 notes

#comments

Female venture capitalist is breaking the mould in Silicon Valleytheglobeandmail.com

Nice profile of Katherine Barr, partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures

Feb 10, 2015

#womenintech venturecapital

“Smartphone and tablet memory aid, Memrica, has become the latest company to win a TechPitch 4.5. The start-up uses image and facial recognition to connect the information people need to remember to the people and things around them.”—Congratulations to Ada’s Lister Mary Matthews who won TechPitch 4.5 for her startup Memrica

Feb 9, 20151 note

#memrica #startup #pitch #brag

10 women who changed the tech industry foreverdailydot.com

History might have forgotten the contributions of these female pioneers, but you shouldn’t.

Feb 7, 20151 note

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Feb 7, 2015

#grace hopper #gillian jacobs #code #womenintech #video

Fostering women leaders: A fitness test for your top teammckinsey.com

Posing five questions can help start a challenging management conversation. A McKinsey Quarterly article.

Feb 7, 2015

#mckinsey #women #hiring

Feb 7, 20151 note

#womenintech #mentoring #facebook #linkedin

“Joan C. Williams, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, finds that professional women in business, law and science are still expected to bring cupcakes, answer phones and take notes. These activities don’t just use valuable time; they also cause women to miss opportunities. The person taking diligent notes in the meeting almost never makes the killer point.”—Madam C.E.O, Get Me A Coffee by Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg in the New York Times

Feb 7, 20152 notes

#womenatwork

Results of 1st Ada’s List Member Survey

Late last year we polled the members of our list to see what they thought of the community and what we could improve upon. When we started the list a year and a half ago, we had no idea what it would blossom into: a community of strong, supportive, smart women working in technology – mostly in the UK but many based across the seas.

We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Alexis Cuddyre, one of our members, who volunteered to help us create an infographic to capture the most salient points from the survey. Alexis, YOU ROCK – THANK YOU!! The whole file is pretty big so it’s saved here – go take a look.

Feb 5, 2015

#womenintech #adaslist #survey

Why Femgineer’s founder is hopeful about women’s roles in Silicon Valleyvogue.in

“Silicon Valley isn’t perfect, but it’s evolving in the right direction”

Feb 5, 2015

#womenintech #engineer

“

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is taking personal responsibility for his platform’s chronic problems with harassment and abuse, telling employees that he is embarrassed for the company’s failures and would soon be taking stronger action to eliminate trolls. He said problems with trolls are driving away the company’s users. “We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years,” Costolo wrote in an internal memo obtained by The Verge. “It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.”

and

“Amid widespread criticism, Twitter released some tools to improve its notoriously arduous process for reporting abuse in December. In November, Twitter partnered with an advocacy group to investigate harassment against women. But every day, Twitter users still face threats of physical violence, sexual abuse, and stalking — all forms of harassment that disproportionately affect women online, according to data from The Pew Center.

”—Twitter CEO: We suck at dealing with abuse in The Verge

Feb 5, 2015

#women twitter abuse

We Hire The Bestmodelviewculture.com

The tech industry prides itself on its rationality, and yet is filled with trite slogans that are demonstrably untrue… and further, harmful.

Feb 3, 20151 note

#hiring #diversity

The First Female Gamersmedium.com

How Dungeons & Dragons Opened Up Games for Women

Feb 2, 2015

“I am constantly telling companies that amenities do not make a culture,” she said. “A pingpong table does not make a culture.”—Nicole Sanchez of Vaya Consulting in this article from the San Francisco Chronicle: For Some Startups, Tech’s Lack of Diversity is a Goldmine

Feb 2, 2015

Female Founders Fare Much Better In 2014techcrunch.com

“Anyone who says they can’t find good women entrepreneurs to invest in is not looking,” says Susan Lyne, who recently stepped down as AOL’s Brand CEO to launch female-focused VC fund BBG Ventures.

Via Ada’s Lister Francesca Piazza

Feb 2, 20152 notes

#womenintech #startups #funding