2014 women Entrepreneurs in the United States

Intermediary transaction SEO diagnosis Taobao guest Cloud host technology Hall

This year, "entrepreneur" elected 7 female innovators, from health care, science and technology, government and other fields. Their innovation not only changed the way people used to engage in business activities, but also contributed to the solution of government security, gender discrimination and world poverty.

Michele Weslander Quaid: Bridging for government and start-ups

She brought cutting-edge technology into the closed U.S. government.

Article | Vanessa Richardson

The United States Government has always been known for its inefficiency (entrepreneur point of view does not represent the Economist's position). But in the 9 years she worked in different parts of the U.S. security Service and with the National Intelligence Director and Defense Minister, Michele Weslander Quaid behaved more like an entrepreneur. She dumped outdated hardware and software, persuaded the team to collaborate through web tools, and let the departments she worked with change their rigid working methods, working like startups.

Weslander Quaid's boldness caught Google's attention, which it dug out in 2011. Now, she is Google's public sector chief technology officer and Google's innovative preacher. Weslander Quaid's usual workplace is in Washington. On the one hand, she explained to the government what they wanted to know about Google's technology; On the other hand, she wanted Google employees to understand why it was necessary to support public sector work. "A big part of my job is translating between the Silicon Valley language and the government language," he said. "There is a bridge of communication between the two cultures," she said. ”

Weslander Quaid studied physics at the undergraduate level and obtained an optical master. After graduation, she works for a business company, both for consumers and for businesses and governments. After the incident, she received an invitation from the Government to advise on counter-terrorism work.

It may be easier for weslander Quaid to keep all information confidential, but she didn't. At the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, which collects military information such as maps and pictures, she persuaded her superiors to work with the National Security Service, which collects voice information, to integrate the information they collected in order to better judge the data. Her efforts were successful and became the youngest senior executive officer in the U.S. government. "This advance is like fighting a war. "she said.

Next, Weslander Quaid a cloud based software that allows visitors to log in without visiting their Washington office. She also standardized different work platforms in various sectors, simplifying technical testing and procurement, saving costs and time, and bringing cutting-edge ideas to closed Washington. "My goal is to streamline the workflow and make sure that the Pentagon and the White House people get the information they want," he said. "she said.

Her latest effort has been to launch a series of projects for developers (not just Google developers), based on Google's Open-source technology, which allows developers to provide the Government with the most demand-compliant technical products. This idea shows people the good cooperation between government departments and start-ups, and the two sides have established a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship.

"The government is always unwilling to take risks and is more willing to maintain the status quo. But it needs to keep up with the pace of innovation. "And tech companies are happy to help the government innovate," Weslander Quaid said. My job is to talk to the two in terms of the rules and regulations that allow the public sector to get the best technical solutions and spend less taxpayers ' money. ”

Rena El Kaliouby: Your face won't fool her.

She can "read" your expression as she reads a book, which may rewrite the rules of the game between consumers and businesses.

Article | Jason Ankeny

Rena El Kaliouby and her colleague at the MIT Media Lab, Rosalind Picard, are the two soul figures in Waltham, Massachusetts, a start-up company. Affectiva's flagship product,--affdex facial expression recognition system, can not only automatically recognize the facial expression of the person being detected, but also analyze and judge the emotional response of the person to see a brand, ad or other digital video content. The user's expression directly tells you the conclusion, which makes traditional sales group discussions, phone research, or other investigative methods that consumers fill out. Even the tiniest, most unspeakable facial expressions can be detected by affdex based on cloud technology, telling you what a customer really thinks about a product or project.

"We are very good at interpreting their perceptions of a brand by analyzing the spontaneous, unconscious reactions of consumers," he said. "If you are a content person and want your content to be a reaction to the audience, we can tell you whether the results are as you wish," said El Kaliouby, who served as Affectiva's chief science officer. For example, if an ad wants to express humor, we can provide data that tells you how many people smile when they see an ad and the degree of laughter and the point of time to laugh. There are too many cases where consumers can report their feelings and bias their findings, but facial expression detection is much more accurate. ”

El Kaliouby's career has been devoted to technology to improve communication and expression between people. Affectiva extended her research on using facial recognition to slow down the symptoms of autism spectrum disorders. "Many autistic people have obstacles in identifying and responding to other people's expressions. "When a person loses the ability to identify these nonverbal cues, social problems arise," she says. ”

In 2009, she and Picard, director of the MIT Center for Emotional Computing Research, founded Affectiva, supported by MIT's sponsor, Procter and Gamble, Microsoft, Google, and Affectiva, a company that can operate independently. "We found that Affdex can work on many occasions, such as cars, smartphones, or market research," he said. "I remember wondering if I was going to do business in the end," said El Kaliouby. But market feedback soon told me that our technology could be everywhere. It works in a variety of environments. ”

Affectiva Since its inception, has been financing 21 million of dollars, investors, including the United States National Science Foundation, WPP, Kleiner, and brand consulting company Millward Brown, Insight Express cooperation, the two companies for Affdex introduced a number of customers. Affdex software applies to any standard webcam, including laptops, tablets, smartphones, and can track their facial expressions as users watch video. These lenses are stored on Affdex's cloud servers, identified and evaluated by computer algorithms, and judged by the quality of their expressions-surprise, disdain, or concentration. In the cloud expression scene playback, the analysis tool carries on the cross analysis to these expressions which are aggregated together, forms the whole set of expression record, completes the speed to be near real-time.

Most users who are tested by Affdex are asked if they are willing to share their expressions and receive a certain fee. Users can choose to be tested or to turn off the webcam. El Kaliouby revealed that about 50% of the users left the camera open. "The reason is that they get value feedback. "We can optimize what you see," she said. By tracking your emotional response, we may make your favorite show more appealing to you. This is a proposal that maximizes value. ”

Affectiva is gradually promoting the face recognition technology. In the fall of 2013, the company launched software for the iOS system, allowing Third-party developers to embed Affdex in the iphone and ipad apps they developed.

People can't wait to see their phones 150 times a day. This is an exciting opportunity for us to capture the expression of every second you look at the screen. "The mood-driven app can also develop more ideas in the fields of gaming and information," says El Kaliouby. In addition, education is the next big area of opportunity, and emotions are at the heart of everything we do. We expect these software engineers to take us into one new field after another. ”

Leila Janah: To provide "micro-work" for poor people

Samasource has paid 4 million of dollars for employees in 9 countries. Now, she is turning her eyes to helping low-income Americans.

Article | J.a.

The purpose of Leila Janah's founding Samasource is not to create wealth, but to do something different.

Samasourcehi is a platform for women and young people to earn their living by providing jobs in emerging markets such as South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean region. It helps employers in the United States work with the local workforce, introducing text entry, using labels on pictures to optimize search engines, content checking, and more. Most people who find jobs through samasourse spend only a few months, earning more than twice times as much as they originally did. 92% of people are out of poverty after leaving the nonprofit.

6 years after its inception, the San Francisco company employs more than 4000 people worldwide. It has resulted in a total of more than 5 million dollars in contracts for businesses and academic institutions, including Google, EBay, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Eventbrite, and Stanford University. In 2013, Samasourse announced a 400% increase in revenue from the 2011 fiscal year.

"Some areas are still in extreme poverty. "The situation is unacceptable and half of the world's population lives on a daily basis 3~4 the dollar," said Samasource's CEO, Janah. Don't do something, I think it is difficult to sit down. ”

Janah believes that his ability to help the poor in India today goes back to the early years of her family's contribution. Her uncle, a famous photographer Sunil Janah, was renowned internationally for photographing a series of pictures of the 1943 Bengal Famine, which claimed the lives of 3 million of people. Leila joined the American Civil Rights League at the age of 15, and two years later, she was exchanged in the American Field Service to teach English in Ghana, earning 10,000 of dollars, and later spent on her local volunteer work.

"The longer I spend in developing countries, the more I talk to poor people, the more I realize that what they need most is work." "We've spent billions of of dollars on international aid, but we don't know how to offer them a decent job," she said. I realized that if we didn't use private money to solve the problem, it would be a waste of money, and it would hurt our own interests. ”

After graduating from Harvard, Janah for a short time at the World Bank, then set up a samasouse and take shape. The word samasource comes from Sanskrit sama, meaning equality. When she met her client in Mumbai, she helped a young telephone call center employee, who returned home from work every day to the infamous filmed slum, where the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire was filmed.

"I know a lot of people like him have the ability to do high-quality work, but in backward countries, the opportunity to work in a decent company has always been biased towards the elite," he said. "There is an opportunity for us to make changes here," Janah said. I want to make an online working model that can go to the middle of the radiation edge of the people. ”

Samasourse's product model is the development of a micro-work platform called Samahub (patented), which transforms large and complex digital engineering into a number of small tasks, which are then distributed to individual workers via the Internet. To verify that the person or family being employed is reliable, Samasourse will carefully review each computer center or Internet café that receives the task. Each newcomer is hired to participate in a 2-4-week training program to ensure that they have proficiency in experimental work, and Samasource will start arranging their clients ' work. For these tasks, Samasource is recompiled and is repeatedly verified with 5 steps.

"We told our clients: ' You're going to outsource this to the company anyway, so why don't you do something to save the world's poverty? ' It won't cost you much more. "Persuading these business leaders to see the potential of the job is a challenge," Janah said. We have to convince them that this business model is going to work. ”

Samasource has paid 4 million of millions of dollars in salaries for employees in 9 countries and has received financial support from MasterCard, EBay, Cisco funds and the U.S. State Department. Now Janah more of his gaze back home to the United States, in 2013, she set up Samausa, launched a 80-hour online boot Camp pilot program. The program is aimed at Community college students and low-income workers near San Francisco and Merced, California, to help them find jobs on the Internet.

"We think it would be easier for community college students to graduate from school if they could earn more 1000~2000 dollars per semester," he said. Janah explained, "It doesn't matter if they quit, at least mastered another skill." We can foresee with optimism that this model is easily spread across the United States. ”

This kind of optimism spreads in Janah whole life and work attitude. "Faith drives me. "When you do something from your heart, you always get a lot of satisfaction when you preach the values that are deep within you," she said. ”

Michell Rowley: Let more women learn to write code

She is subverting the male-dominated software world.

Article | John Patrick Pullen

Michell Rowley is too clear how a misplaced string code is going to crash the entire software. A local newspaper in Portland called her "The big project of her life".

In May 2012, a report from Willamette Week about the lack of female workers in Oregon State Portland Science and technology, and referred to Rowley's intention to launch a Python language project to recruit new female programmers. More than 100 women wanted to join in the show of interest. This became the driving force behind Rowley's creation of the Code Scouts, a non-profit organization that was seen as likely to make the entire software industry look great.

The recruitment market for computer-related industries has grown rapidly, but gender discrimination persists, which is a tragedy for the industry as a whole. Although female labour has accounted for 51% per cent in 2012, female workers account for only 1/4 of the computer industry, and only 34% web designers, 23% programmers, 20% software development engineers and 15% information security analysts are women. In the field of open source code known as the backbone of the Internet, women accounted for only 1.5% of the population.

Rowley learned from his friends and partly learned to write code, and when she got a job as a programmer, she entered the male-dominated work environment. Rowley is often asked to express ideas in a feminine perspective. "It's strange, but the atmosphere is different, you're the only woman in the house and they have to face you." "I began to wonder what this little change would bring if more women entered the industry," she said.

So she created a code workshop specifically for women, which drew the attention of Rick Turoczy, co-founder and general manager of the Portland Pie incubator. Turoczy encouraged Rowley to make it a business, but Rowley insists that the studio should be non-profit, and it aims to help the neglected female groups, such as single mothers, who have no money and no time to take part in a one-month software development training camp. Even though an incubator like pie has focused more on profitable start-ups and has a stake in the future for more returns, "We think Pie is an experimental institution more heartfelt." Turoczy said: "It's a perfect profit to look at someone like Rowley and see her try to deliver more talent to the Portland venture, so we've invested in her." ”

In July 2012, Pie gave Rowley 18,000 dollars in financial support to help her start code Scouts. The Code scouts initially had very little money, and a group of volunteers helped the start-up, which assembled a group of 110 students who were happy to study in the relevant fields and summoned 30 teachers. Students learn to write simple programs, such as Web accessibility tools, automated chat software, etc., and mentors evaluate their written procedures and provide career guidance. Some students can even get hands-on experience by working in a company with a mentor.

"Of course we don't just stay in Portland, we're definitely going to the world," he said. "Rowley said. She is drawing a blueprint for Code scouts, "As long as you find people in these cities who are willing to ascend, they can help their dreams come true." ”

Nicole Glaros: Creating the most discerning incubator

90% of TechStars graduate projects have found sustainable business models or investments that are "killer skills" given to TechStars by Nicole Glaros.

Article | Joe Lindsey

Most entrepreneurs start their careers after taking career planning courses. Nicole Glaros helped 10~20 start-up in a year. She is now the operational director of the TechStars incubator in Colorado State Boulder City and New York.

Glaros will select 1% from applicants to take part in a 3-month incubation program to guide them through the early stages of entrepreneurship and success.

Impetuous's glaros, in a way, is not exactly like a "star creator". She gained power in a male-dominated world. Of the Techstar's nearly 1000 entrepreneurs, Glaros the most distinctive of her entrepreneurial story is not so spark splash.

1997, Glaros and his father did a property management in the field of E-commerce companies, very successful. But after two startups all suffered a fiasco. She said: "I found that when I started my own business, I had no magic, it was my father's." ”

Still, the experience of failure gave her the opportunity to work in a technology incubator in Boulder City. It was during this time that she realized that her failure to start a business was due to executive power and lack of connections, which gave her the idea of being a guide for other entrepreneurs. "Of course not everything I know the answer to." "But I'm sure I can find someone who knows the answer," she said. My job is to find the most helpful people for these startups. ”

In 2009, TechStars co-founder David Cohen discovered that Glaros had a knack for matching startups with outside mentors and invited her to join. TechStars offers business guidance and financing services to selected start-ups (including 18,000-dollar seed funds, and entrepreneurs can opt for a 100,000-dollar convertible bond bill). But Glaros says the most important role of the incubator is not to give money, not even to bypass the founders and investment companies, but to guide them.

"I often hear entrepreneurs say, ' Oh! If we have 250,000 dollars, or we can melt to 1 million dollars, the company will be much better than it is now." "But that's not true." The most important thing is to find someone who is right for you and they are really passionate about your success. ”

TechStars's mentor list includes a large group of successful entrepreneurs, industry experts and VC, such as Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo, Angel investor Esther Dyson, video website Vimeo and CollegeHumor co-founder Josh Abramson.

Glaros and TechStars, like the chief operating officer of another 7 start-up schools, connect start-ups with mentors, experts, investors, or other roles that she deems to be helpful. She called the TechStars "killer skills", and 90% of the projects graduating from TechStars found sustainable business models, or investments.

"Nicole's eye is astonishing. TechStars Cohen says, "she has a gut instinct for people, and early startups are looking for someone." ”

Is she going to start again? Did she find the entrepreneurial magic? Every year I have the urge to start again. "Glaros admits," but every year I ask myself, ' Where do you get the biggest harvest? ' Actually in TechStars. Instead of being a company, help 10 companies. ”

Caryn Seidman-becker: A freshman of a bankrupt company

The failure of clear has never lost faith in Seidman-becker, and she believes that biometrics can ultimately change the way people work, live and travel.

Article | J.p.p

Caryn Seidman-becker every time from downtown Orlando, Florida, to the airport, boarding and seating until the cabin door closes and the plane takes off, a total of one hours. "One hours from the door to the cabin." The clear company's founder and CEO stressed.

How did this happen? The secret is security. Clear uses a dual biometrics algorithm based on human face and voice to circumvent the most burdensome aspects of the boarding process. Members of the physiological characteristics, fingerprint characteristics, iris identification, etc. are recorded in the membership card of the built-in chip. Membership card does not need to follow the long team to wait for security, just at the airport special security kiosks check-in.

Clear by Steven Brill, a media man and entrepreneur, was created in New York in 2003 (renamed Flyclear), which won the hearts of 200,000 paying members. At that time, clear had cooperated with at least 12 airports, and had received 75 million of dollars of investment before the 2009 economic crisis. In December 2009, a large number of customer data were not managed in a computer, due to a 33 million dollar debt and a collapse of the company.

Seidman-becker, a hedge fund that held a stake in L-1 Identity FX of the Defense outsourcing company, has been supporting clear back-end technical support. Rather than lose her confidence, she believes the biometric skills will come back sooner or later, changing the way people live, work and travel. Seidman-becker has had a very successful career, and she knows exactly how to allocate funds, create long-term value, and see the commercial value of buying clear.

"The failure before clear is related to itself." It should not have gone bankrupt. Its debt accumulates too much, but the company's core structure is still there. "If we do clear like we do other business companies, it will be very successful because it provides a lifetime of value to the members, and the problem is how to build an effective organizational structure." ”

Seidman-becker's investment company, Algood Holdings, bought clear in 2010 for 6 million dollars. Her first decision was to leave clear the recognizable Blue Square brand logo, which spent 40 million of dollars before the boss. "The customer knows it, now just rebuild the credibility and push the brand back out." "she said.

To achieve the goal, Seidman-becker thought a lot of ways. Clear respectfully contacts those customers who were not able to continue to serve. Seidman-becker a large list of mailing lists on the company's web site, sending autographed emails and personally calling the most discerning customers. "A man dares to write anything in his email, but he will be more polite when he picks up the phone." ”

She also has to convince the airport and the traffic security Department to tell them that clear is now a brand new business. She was very tenacious and indomitable. "Brigitte Goersch, former executive deputy director of Orlando International Airport, said she was the first to collaborate with clear. Since its inception in 2010, the company has 200 employees, 30 air corridors have been built at 9 airports, 250,000 members and each member pays a yearly contribution of 179 dollars. "Clear has developed very quickly, and this is inseparable from her affinity." "Brigitte Goersch said.

Now, every time Seidman-becker takes off from Orlando airport with her 3 children, she uses clear to board the plane, which gives children more time to play. "This efficiency makes your life completely different. "When I was playing at Disneyland with the kids, it was great when I found time was ample," she said. ”

Nina Nashif: Another kind of white angel

I'm afraid no one is more aware than Nina Nashif how inefficient the global health industry has brought to the disaster. Now she finally found a viable solution for the entrepreneur.

Article | Michelle Yuergen

In 2011, Nashif, with over 15 years of management experience in healthcare, set up incubator Healthbox for start-ups in Chicago to promote innovation in health care and to help early health start-ups in the incubator to advance their ideas.

In the past, big health-care institutions are going to have to innovate--cumbersome processes are hampering progress. Nashif firmly believes that if these large institutions can become the first experimental field of start-ups, then cooperation and innovation between the two sides will greatly promote and ultimately bring more efficient services to patients. Healthbox's goal is to build an ecosystem in which entrepreneurs enter the industry to access the resources and knowledge they need.

"One of the challenges we face is that the industry system is so complex that an entrepreneur usually doesn't know where to turn for help." Every hospital or medical institution focuses on a different area, so we spent a lot of time at the beginning of the project to match startups and medical institutions. We need to know a lot of details to see how the program offered by the entrepreneur improves medical efficiency. "Nashif said. She attended the TED Medical conference in 2013 and was awarded the title of "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum. "At the same time, we can also preach in the industry, pointing out how medical institutions work with start-ups." ”

Healthbox's Incubator list, a start-up 3Derm from Connecticut State New Haven, aims to target the growing demand for patient involvement. They have developed a low-cost platform in which patients with skin diseases can upload their own photos, recommend a dermatologist for them by 3Derm, and regularly check patients.

Since its inception, Healthbox has provided incubation support for 54 health-care technology companies and 124 founders, all over London, Boston, Chicago, Nashville, Jacksonville and other areas. Healthbox-backed start-ups will participate in a 16-week training program and receive 50,000 dollars in capital, office space and medical expertise, healthbox to 7% per cent of the company.

As of now, the number of teams has been enlarged by an average of one-fold in Healthbox's completed projects. They expanded about 130 pilot projects and early customers. In the 2013, their global total affected more than 1 million people in the treatment process.

"We are not here to subvert the industry, we are trying to do something for the industry." "We are looking for sustainable business models, new partnerships, and new approaches to health management," Nashif said. I am glad to see that there are many entrepreneurs and we have an appointment, there are new solutions and big companies game. In the health care industry, you have to be willing to bet that an idea will eventually solve all of our problems. "(Translate | Yelena Xu)