Women Who Tech

2008 Panelist Bios | Advisory Committee Bios

	Heather Holdridge Panel: Web 2.0: Hot Or Not? Heather serves as the Director of Political Advocacy for Care2, the largest social network empowering civically active people to discover, share and take action. She works to connect Care2’s 8.7 million members to non-profits doing political work and campaigns in 2008, and to provide a forum for organizations to promote their message and mission. Care2’s members are interested in making a difference in the world, supporting progressive advocacy on issues as varied as women’s rights, environmental issues, human rights, animal rights, issues and progressive politics, among others. Prior to Care2, Heather was a partner and Online Organizing Director for the Carol/Trevelyan Strategy Group, working with clients across the progressive spectrum to develop online campaigns and communications strategies.
	Tara Hunt Panel: Women And Social Capital Tara ‘miss rogue’ Hunt has spent most of her adult life online, either participating in or building communities. From the first wave of online marketing when she was in Canada, showing companies how to brave this new medium, all the way to being part of one of the companies in Silicon Valley that led the wave into Web 2.0: the participatory web. Tara understands how the participatory web is changing all of our relationships: B2C, B2B and C2C. She doesn’t believe in pushing messages or creating strong brands, only in the power of building relationships. She co-founded Citizen Agency in 2006 with the mission of teaching her clients how to work more effectively with the communities they serve and how to embrace and adjust to all of the changes in culture businesses are facing. She maintains a successful blog over at HorsePigCow. Tara is writing a book on community marketing and speaks all over the world on the same topic. She is also very much involved in grassroots online communities, spending all of her free time on Barcamp, Coworking, Zipkarma and Winecamp. She is also a supporter of the Open Source movement, the EFF, Creative Commons and community-based standards movements like Microformats and OpenID.
	Lynne D Johnson Panel: Tooting Your Own Horn Lynne is the Senior Editor/Community Director for FastCompany.com, a leading website and community for people passionate about business ideas that also offers the complete content of FastCompany magazine. She also writes a technology blog following web, media, and consumer trends for FastCompany.com, and guest blogs for techPresident and Black Web 2.0. Lynne also serves on the Board of Directors of the Literary Freedom Project, a nonprofit arts organization, which seeks to empower communities of color through literature, creative thinking, and new media. Prior to joining Fast Company, she was the General Manager, New Media for VIBE, SPIN, and VIBE Vixen where she she managed marketing, editorial, production, business development, and sales operations for the magazines' websites and mobile properties. Her personal blog, Lynne d Johnson music, media, my life, which launched in July 2001, is the recipient of the 2006 Black Weblog Awards Black Blogger Achievement Award.
	Mir Kamin Panel: Improve This Blog Pitch Mir has been blogging since 2003, first building a following as a personal blogger at wouldashoulda.com, then branching out into writing a shopping/finance blog (wantnot.net) and hiring out her services to various corporate clients. She is now a professional blogger, writing for seven different sites on a regular basis. Mir receives upwards of a dozen pitches a week from various marketing and PR folks -- most of whom have no clue about how to effectively interest bloggers in writing about their products. Now that she is moving into blog outreach, herself, on behalf of her clients, she is particularly interested in both educating marketers from the blogger's point of view, and comparing best practices with those who are already achieving success in blogging outreach.
	Beth Kanter Panel: Web 2.0: Hot Or Not? Beth Kanter is a trainer, blogger, and consultant to nonprofits and individuals in effective use of social media. Her expertise is how to use new web tools (blogging, tagging, wikis, photo sharing, video blogging, screencasting, social networking sites, and virtual worlds, etc) to support nonprofit. She has worked on projects that include: training, curriculum development, research, and evaluation. She is an experienced coach to "digital immigrants" in the personal mastery of these tools. She is a professional blogger and writes about the use of social media tools in the nonprofit sector for social change.
	Allyson Kapin Panel: Web 2.0: Hot Or Not? As the Founding Partner of Rad Campaign, Allyson serves as the Executive Creative Director and leads the firm's client and online strategic services. For over a decade Allyson has helped non-profit organizations create dynamic and award-winning websites and online marketing and recruitment campaigns. She works with her clients to meet their web needs and maximize their online effectiveness to create real world impact. As part of the first generation of online advocacy experts, Allyson has a thorough understanding of the rapidly changing world of online activism. She is an expert in the latest trends in social networking, blogging, online video and other online tools and strategies and advises her clients on how to cost effectively incorporate them into their Internet plans and online campaigns. Her insights can be found on the Rad Blog. Her web campaigns have been recognized with several prestigious web awards and featured on several top media networks ranging from CNN to NPR and the Daily Show with John Stewart.
	Cassandra Koenen Panel: Breaking Through The Digital Ceiling Cassandra joined IFAW – the International Fund for Animal Welfare - in 1997, to manage Supporter Relations out of the newly opened Ottawa, Canada office. In 2001 Cassandra relocated to Cape Cod and took on the development of the emerging web giving program. Under her leadership, the Online Campaigns and Marketing Department manages 15 country sites in 9 languages and 6 currencies. The E-List of supporters and activists has grown to almost 500,000 worldwide and web giving has grown to over $1,000,000 annually. As the Director of Online Campaign and Marketing, Cassandra provides strategic leadership and direction towards the development, integration and implementation of IFAW's Global Internet activities, assuring the ongoing generation of effective online campaigns in support of IFAW’s brand identity, fundraising, programmatic, and educational goals and priorities.
	Lynn Labieniec Panel: Breaking Through The Digital Ceiling Lynn has been helping the nonprofit sector apply technology to their business operations since 1980. Lynn's leadership inspires, motivates, and focuses Beaconfire on achieving organizational, client and project objectives. Her aptitude for developing practical solutions from abstract ideas has been utilized by both Beaconfire and clients alike. Before co-founding Beaconfire, Lynn served on Commerce One's Nonprofit Leadership Team, as well as a leader within Commerce One's project management skill track. Previously, Lynn was a founding partner of RivCom Limited, in the United Kingdom, a consultancy firm specializing in applying XML technologies to knowledge and information management problems. She has also held various management positions at Blackbaud Inc. and Riverside Software Inc., with a particular focus on helping corporate and private foundations effectively implement and integrate grants management software.
	Joe Lee Panel: Get Your Local Campaigns On! Jo Lee is a partner at Green Machine PR, a boutique PR firm that focuses on high-tech and green-tech. She is also a serial developer of online sites for grassroots activists. Jo started and runs CitizenSpeak - a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations. CitizenSpeak and its developers have won a number of prestigious awards, including the Tides Foundation Pizzigati award (the nation's top award for open source software in the public space) and a Webby honoree award. In the spirit of '08, she also recently launched RingTones08.com – a free site where people can upload and share ringtones about the 2008 election.
	Marie Michaelson Panel: Firing up Your Online List Marie joined Greenpeace as Web Producer in May, 2005, and assumed the role of Director of Online Communications in March, 2006. Previously, Marie spent 5 years as Director of Online Communications for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), where she was responsible for redesigning the web site, introducing a new action center and other interactive features, increasing site traffic by 145%, and increasing NPCA's activist list by 75,000. She also spent 5 years as Youth Communications Specialist with Defenders of Wildlife, where she designed the Kids' Planet web site. Marie holds a B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology from St. Mary's College of Maryland.
	Michelle Murrain Panel: Open Source For Women Michelle Murrain, Ph.D. has worked with nonprofit and educational organizations on technology issues, particularly internet technologies, since 1994, and is a nationally recognized leader in the nonprofit technology field. She is the coordinator of the Non Profit Open Source Initiative (NOSI). She is also principal of MetaCentric Technology Advising, a technology consulting practice focused on helping nonprofits implement technology sustainably. She blogs on nonprofit technology at Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology.
	Maria Niles Panel: Improve This Blog Pitch Maria Niles is CEO of ConsumerPop Marketing which helps companies with branding, brand management, market research and social media creation and use. Prior to founding ConsumerPop in 2005, Maria led successful marketing efforts at companies such as Kraft Foods and Campbell's Soup. Recently Maria has helped a range of organizations and companies better understand their customers and clients through custom research. Also, Maria has helped companies to create and implement social media efforts including the Let It Out Blog™ for Kleenex® brand tissues.
	Kelly O'Neal Panel: Firing Up Your Online List Kelly is an independent consultant helping nonprofits organizations develop online campaign strategies to better utilize the Internet as an organizing, fundraising, and outreach tool. She has created and implemented online strategies recruiting hundreds of thousands of online supporters and raising millions of dollars online for a variety of organization including Oceana, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, League of Conservation Voters, Union of Concerned Scientists, and SaveOurEnvionment.org. Prior to her work as an online communications specialist, Kelly worked on several electoral campaigns and has experience as a lobbyist and grassroots organizer working on environmental protection, campaign finance reform, and consumer safety issues. Previous Next

WOMEN ARE UNDERREPRESENTED

Some of the most gifted folks in technology are women yet they are rarely quoted as experts by the mainstream media and blogs. Furthermore women are significantly underrepresented on panels at major technology conferences.
TO BREAK DOWN BARRIERS

The teleSummit aims to break down the barriers and showcase the brilliant talents of women who tech out.
TO MOBILIZE A NETWORK OF WOMEN

One of our long term goals is to create a database of women technology experts to be used as a resource for the media and tech conference organizers. This database will not only provide a strong network of women in the technology sector but support the creative talents and energies of women who thrive in this arena.

WOMEN ARE UNDERREPRESENTED

TO BREAK DOWN BARRIERS

TO MOBILIZE A NETWORK OF WOMEN