Anne Wojciki « TheNextWeb.com

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Where are the female speakers on web conferences?

Written on December 30, 2007 – 2:47 pm
Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference

WoW large After the post about the need for a female Steve Jobs and in search for a female role model I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at technology conferences.

Go to any web conference (LeWeb3, TechCrunch40, The Next Web, FOWA, you name it..) and one thing that cannot go by unnoticed is that almost all speakers are men. There are a few simple explanations for this (apart from the standard explanations), one of them is that men tend to be more passionate about technology and the web then women do. Another can be that men are at higher or at least more ‘visible’ positions. Also it may be that men are more experienced speakers. But the web is new, it transforms things, it changes the way we do business and it shouldn’t make any difference between men and women. As it is a fairly new sector, it exists only 5000 days, this is THE opportunity for talented women to take the lead over men (not that it should be like a kind of war).

I believe there is a huge opportunity for talented women to become the most wanted speakers in the tech scene. Conferences are more then willing to invite women to their stage (they have to be really good though). So who are the women we all should watch? Some of the women I’m following are:

Leah Culver
Deborah Schultz
Kathy Sierra
Anne Wojcicki (Co-founder of 23andme.com)
Esther Dyson
Caterina Fake

To get Web 2.0 to the next level we need a female Steve Jobs. A woman with passion for the web, amazing presentation skills and humor.

I’m looking forward to see more women speaking at events (also at The Next Web conference, to write about startups founded by women, to know what is going on on the female side of the web (so if there are women who like to write for The Next Web, please let us know).

I hope you like that post!

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