Tag Archives: women in tech

An Interview with Amritha Jayanti, the Founder of Technica

This post is part of a blog series for the launch of Ladies First, the Dingman Center’s commitment to increase the number of women involved in entrepreneurship at UMD.

Ladies First isn’t the only initiative at University of Maryland that is breaking down gender inequality—this weekend marks the second year of Technica, UMD’s all-female hackathon, a student-run event that has garnered national attention. Young women in tech from all over the country flock to Technica, and its list of corporate sponsors includes tech giants like Facebook and Yelp. This year, the Technica team added a “Tech + X” week of workshops and panels leading up to the hackathon to help women better prepare for the weekend ahead. Last night, the Dingman Center contributed its network to a panel on Tech + Social Entrepreneurship, which examined how technology can generate social impact. We spoke with Amritha Jayanti ’18, the founder of Technica, about her vision for the hackathon.

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An open letter to aspiring female entrepreneurs

By: Julia Klein

Have you ever identified a problem and thought to yourself, “Someone should invent something that solves this?” Have you ever thought to yourself, “I have a better way of doing this?”

If you answered yes, you may not have realized it at the time, but you were thinking like an entrepreneur. Maybe you seized the moment and brought your idea to life but, more likely, you made an excuse for why being an entrepreneur wasn’t right for you. I know this because, before taking the leap and starting my business, I navigated through miles of these same excuses.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common objections raised by potential female founders:

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Powering Women Entrepreneurs

By Elana Fine

Last Saturday I moderated a “Powering Women Entrepreneurs” panel at Forte Foundation’s annual MBA Women’s Leadership Conference. Over 450 current women MBA students from top business schools filled the conference hall wearing “Let’s Power Up” t-shirts while taking selfies with cutouts of powerful women leaders such as Smith School alumna Carly Fiorina, Oprah Winfrey, and Sheryl Sandberg.

The panel included three successful women entrepreneurs:

Tiffany Norwood, Serial Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur in Residence, Georgetown University

Arum Kang, Co-Founder and CEO Coffee Meets Bagel

Hillary Lewis, Founder and President, Lumi Organics

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L-R: Elana Fine, Tiffany Norwood, Arum Kang, Hillary Lewis

I quickly realized what an opportunity our panel had to inspire such a large crowd of impressive women at such an important inflection point in their careers.  As I told the crowd, my goal was for each of them to consider one entrepreneurial experience during their two years as MBA students. Continue reading

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