Happy International Women’s Day!
The women of TNW have taken over the newsletter with their favorite things from around the web. Enjoy.
What we’re talking about:
“Loved this interview I saw a couple weeks back with Bozoma Saint John, Uber’s Chief Brand Officer. She talks about her choice to come on board even though Uber’s had a ton of negative publicity in the past.”
“I love video games… Firewatch plays like a more relaxed version of Uncharted or Tomb Raider and is just the right game for those days when you don’t feel like shooting down an armada of enemies… The story is thrilling, funny, thought-provoking, and the virtual world is absolutely beautiful.”
Ela Darling, the first ever VR porn star, co-founder of VRTube.xxx, and holder of an MA in library science is a badass. The Daily Dot profiled her back in August.
“I love RuPaul and I love Jenna Wortham. Her cover story about him for a recent edition of NYT Magazine was everything I’ve ever wanted. Both are incredibly groundbreaking and funny creatives.”
“I’m a huge fan of journalist Rukmini Callimachi, who covers ISIS for the NYT. She spends hours every day interacting with young jihadists on Twitter and has become an expert on how terrorist groups uses social media. Apparently, for a while, ISIS followers were all using coffee mugs as their avatars, but no one really knew why. It’s old, but I still love this interview she did on Longform’s podcast.” (You can find part 2 here.)
Have you watched Susan Cain’s TED talk The Power of Introverts? “I know I sound cliche when I say this changed my life, but this fucking changed my life.”
Check out this story from Wired about a crypto event where attendees were mysteriously “infused”: “It’s a funny story, but being infused during a tech event without realizing it is not OK. Currently, we’re not getting guests at our events high without their consent… only with our content ?”
“I came across uxdesign.cc’s interview with behavioral scientist Susan Weinschenk while researching speakers for the Design track of the upcoming TNW Conference. Susan’s interview really stood out because you just feel the love she has for UX & Design. The way she describes her role models in the industry makes me feel so empowered and grateful for all the women who were before me.”
Leyla Acaroglu is the UNEP’s Champion of Earth… sounds like a superhero, right? She’s literally saving the planet. “Love this woman.”
“Today’s story about how Amazon’s Alexa has been spontaneously laughing scared the shit out of me. Reminds me of a story we did months ago when a woman’s internet-connected camera started whispering ‘Hola Senorita’. Also reminds me of when I was a kid — I had a defective Furby which would make random noises at night and ruined my childhood.Black Mirror. Fuck that.”
CEOs we admire
Today, TNW is publishing profiles of CEOs and founders doing the damn thing. They also happen to be women:
After growing up in an ultra-orthodox family in Israel, Orit Hashay, CEO of Brayola, trained as a software developer before building a big data-powered bra empire.
At the age of 11, Roxana Zaman fled Nicole Ceausescu’s collapsing regime in communist Romania. Now she’s the COO and co-founder of Maple, a Canadian telemedicine startup that gives patients healthcare access from the comfort of their own home.
Inspired by a subreddit of the same name, Galia Benartzi co-founded Bancor, an Israeli cryptocurrency outfit that raised $153 million of ether within 3 hours of opening the gates.
Check back throughout the day for more!
Love you, mean it!
you sent us your thoughts…
Yesterday we asked, what is the state of women in tech today?
We heard you, and everyone is in agreement — it’s not where it needs to be. Here at TNW, we have brilliant women working in Sales, Editorial, Design, Events, HR, and more, but we appreciate there’s a long way to go. We hope that by spotlighting more female disruptors and tech leaders in our stories, newsletters, and on our TNW Answers platform, TNW can become even more inclusive.
This is an ongoing project, and we want — and need — your help. What can we do to improve? You keep us grounded… don’t stop throwing us your always *ahem* colorful feedback.
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