The Women in Tech Debate Continued
Michael Spencer
A.I. Writer, researcher and curator - full-time Newsletter publication manager.
I my last article on how key it is that women play an active role in the age of entrepreneurship that is coming, I spoke a bit about how Millennial women are disrupting the startup scene and becoming entrepreneurs. They are founding their own companies, even in very sexist IT environments.
Women entrepreneurs are breaking barriers, and excelling. Each year we have more positive role-models and examples of this. Feminism and Entrepreneurship is converging, resulting in a new breed of career-focused and holistic minded Female leadership. We are seeing this across the globe, at unprecedented levels. I believe it's a #BigIdeas2016 issue.
The Tech industry is universal described as a "sausage fest", much to the detriment of gender equality, but there are some bright lights in the far East, among others closer to home.
Top Women in Tech of Asia
Startups in Singapore, inventors in Japan, Digital marketers in Taiwan, growth hacking in Hong Kong, Asia is fertile grounds for entrepreneurs. I'm beyond excited about the topic of female entrepreneurs and innovation occurring in Asia. Instead of writing about a topic though, let's explore some exciting people. I may also single out some Americans of asian descent, so be warned this article is a bit broad seeking only to inspire.
1. Michelle Chen, is my favourite digital marketer in China. I follow her LinkedIn updates and Twitter religiously. She is such a good curator of content from Asia, that she's a great ambassador to startup and tech news for a western audience. Follower her on Twitter here. Originally from Taiwan, Michelle is someone I respect immensely.
2. Yuko Nakazawa, has to be my favourite inventor CEO out of Asia. She's CEO of UPQ (pronounced “up-Q”), and has ridiculous timelines of inventing products and producing them in under a 2 month production cycle.
We all know speed kills in disruption #BigIdeas2016, and these people are the new rule. The Tokyo-based startup, founded in just this past summer, managed to unveil 24 consumer electronics products thus far. It's stunning that they have products like customer earphones, SIM-free smartphones and action cameras already.
3. Fove is not an Asian woman. Sorry to deceive you! But rather the world's first eye-tracking virtual reality headset.
I'm impressed by the disruption-quotient & marketing of this new company.
- Fove is Japan's version of Occulus, and hit its kickstarter goal just 3 days into its 45 day campaign.
- It’s named after fovea, the part of the human eye that gives us the sharp central vision necessary for tasks like reading, driving, and, of course, playing video games.
4. Cheryl Yeoh, is a pretty slick CEO. Between places like San Fransisco and Malaysia, I can't for the life of me figure out where she is at. Her former company @ReclipIt, was acquired by @WalmartLabs.
I am nearly reduced to tears, at the global vision of entrepnreurs like this, who care about where they come from even if they grew up in the West. She has been described as the superwoman of the Malaysian startup ecosystem.
5. Melieyana Tijoe, is an Indonesian startup founder in tourism. Gogonesia, allows you to book tour packages and creates links to tourism in Indonesia. She's got a brand that's easy to understand, and the spirit to succeed, where others have failed.
Women in Tech CEOs & Founders
If you are a young Millennial woman today, if they can do it, why can't you?
Addendum
Gender diversity in Tech is pretty brutal. We are talking a 30/70 rule. Or worse?
There is no doubt that female founders are on an upward trend. Female founders building killer tech companies are not as hard to find as they used to be.
When I read about the #IlookLikeanEngineer movement, little did I realize it was to become one of the most exciting memes of 2015. That little spark and spike in August, 2015, signaled a "light bulb" going off in me.
- I'm not a woman or a coder, or even a person who works much in technology per se. So why should I care? It just made a huge impact upon me. I can't even quite explain it...maybe I'm just a someone that can respect what minorities have to go through, just to survive.
Maybe I have a little more respect for mavericks, non-conformits, risk-takers, doers and pioneers than most.
- Let's take a short visual tour of some more faces you should know!
- Edgar is turning heads for being an alternative to Buffer and Hootsuite.
I hope you enjoyed this article, please share it if you feel it might inspire somebody out there.
Related Entities Senior Accountant. For entities that conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends so people and nature can thrive.
8 年With you Natasha. I haven't met the "lots of women who find computers too hard to navigate" I've had to help the men with their IT issues at work as well and I'm not the it person. Not everyone can know everything, both male and females will have areas they may not understand, I have had some great coemployees over the years who have helped me with progression in IT, until finally I started to be able to see what the company needed to progress in, gained the trust of the boss to make it happen, then found the right programmers who the boss liked and it happens. I find that if you help each other discuss things together you remove all fear from the team because you give support, you can take each other further. So people, if you find anyone finding computers too difficult to navigate, maybe there is some other team issue in play. Because I dare not believe you have the male stereo typed domination issue?
Account Manager
8 年Happy Merry Christmas
sales associate at so
8 年Great job! stay on your P & Qs
Postdoct/Doct/MsC/Eng/Professor/Research/PDVSA Adviser-Consultant
8 年Ad competitive between them