Hasta La Gadget!

In preparation for the upcoming Latinas Think Big Innovation Summit this October, at Google’s campus in Silicon Valley, I have been on a quest to identify Latinas around the country who are innovating in technology and across STEM fields.

I admit I stepped into this search with some trepidation – informed by reports and articles that continuously characterize Latinas as avid consumers and early adapters of technology, but significantly less engaged in the creation of new technology tools, in tech entrepreneurship or innovation.

But, as I delved deep into my social media networks, inquiring for names of Latinas who were innovating in technology, I began to see the new faces of innovation. Online research also revealed these new faces – as I pieced together “Top Latinas in STEM or Technology” lists, articles and interviews from online magazines, news digital platforms and blogs. Not surprisingly, I also found many of these women actively engaged on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ communities.

THE REVEAL: OBSERVATIONS AND INSIGHTS

My talent scout for Latinas in technology revealed some interesting observations and insights, three of which I outline below, followed by some recommendations to be considered.

Latinas are Not Just Consumers of Technology,
They are also Technology Innovators

Undeniably, Latinas over index non-Hispanics in the consumption of digital and mobile technology (Nielsen’s report presents robust data on this). But, it is important to recognize that Latinas are, indeed, contributing to and creating new technology tools across college campuses, at work and online. Furthermore, they are leveraging technology to grow their businesses, advance their careers, and create social impact in their communities. To illustrate this point, I highlight three women I recently came across – they will all be speaking at the upcoming Latinas Think Big Innovation Summit.

• Meet Lisa Morales-Hellebo, the co-founder of the New York Fashion Tech Lab, an accelerator that she launched with Springboard Enterprises and the Partnership Fund for NYC. Her previous fashion tech startup, Shopsy, leveraged patent pending, smart data, remix technology to allow women to shop online the way they shop offline. Lisa is an alumna of both Springboard Enterprises and TechStars, and currently serves on the Board of Advisors for SNOBSWAP and Voysee.
• Meet Zoraida Velasco, the Co-Founder of Dinnergy, an app created to introduce carbon budgeting principles into real world solutions, to bring awareness and foster real action towards energy reduction. The Dinnergy team will be launching the mobile application through a pilot program in partnership with Tufts University Dining Services. The program will focus on reducing emissions across the entire supply chain, providing energy and emissions data to dinning services and students across the campus.
• Meet Judy Tomlinson, the CEO of FashionTEQ, a fashion-forward, wearable technology company, which combines high-tech with high fashion in conjunction with smartphone technology. Judy is also the Founder of CCO for AvocSoft, a company focusing on the development of mobile applications featuring simple user interfaces and powerful functionality. AvocSoft has launched a variety of successful applications, some of which have been ranked #1 in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

There many more Latinas in technology like Lisa, Zoraida and Judy. And, there are a greater number of aspiring and emerging women who are innovating in isolation, detached from the resources, networks and ecosystems necessary to advance their technologies.

Current Accelerator Models Are Not a Good Fit

It is no secret that the high-tech world is ideally suited for white, privileged males (often young and single). Consider the traditional models of accelerators – these are highly selective infrastructures especially designed to help launch and scale new startups. These programs connect tech entrepreneurs to mentorship, advice, practical training, resources, influential networks and investors.

There is a plethora of barriers obstructing women and, especially Latinas, from gaining access to top accelerators like the Y Combinator and TechStar. First, getting into these programs is fiercely competitive, with admissions rates as low as two percent. Second, female founders are a hugely underrepresented minority. In 2011, only four percent of Y Combinator companies had a female founder, increasing to 10 percent in 2013 – an all-time high. We can safely assume that the stats on Latina founders within these accelerators are staggeringly lower. This is precisely why Manos Accelerator, an organization that exclusively focuses on Latin American tech entrepreneurs, matters. Manos’ inaugural class had seven startups – five of them with Latina co-founders.

Yet, even with increased access to these programs, Latinas (and many women, in general) are faced with another limiting barrier: the 12-week commitment to leave their homes (often travel out of state) to immerse themselves in a highly intensive, long hours program. For Latinas, who place a salient value on family, the 12-week commitment is often a deal breaker.

Embracing the “Tech Startup” Label Matters

Consider Airbnb, an online platform that helps connect people who have space to rent with those who are looking for a place to stay. It was recently featured as a tech startup in Fortune Magazine. There are other similar examples of online ventures labeled “tech companies,” including Huffington Post, Care.com and AngiesList.com. Which brings me to Latina bloggers and digital media publishers.

For years, thousands of Latina bloggers and online publishers have been making their mark on the blogosphere, publishing relevant and informative content across all life-style areas. For a significant number of Latina bloggers, these online platforms are a business – they connect brands to targeted audiences, write product reviews, promote brand campaigns, write advertorials, and monetize incoming traffic with a range of ads and affiliate programs.

Yet, their business models have remained constrained within the blogging practice when, in fact, a large percent of Latina bloggers are tech entrepreneurs. Clara Gonzales is a good example. She is the Founder of DominicanCooking.com, a hugely popular online collection of traditional Dominican recipes. Since 2001, Clara, an Industrial Designer by profession, has monetized her platform using smart business models and scaling up to reach millions of people. She is, indeed, a tech entrepreneur running a tech company.

Do the tech startup and tech entrepreneur labels matters? Absolutely. Identifying Latina bloggers (who monetize their platforms) as tech entrepreneurs allows them to be included in a new conversation, and opens up new opportunities for business growth, support and funding.

RECOMMENDATIONS

How do we begin to address and close the innovation divide, as it pertains to Latinas in this country? This is an important conversation, and one that includes a policy-driven top-bottom approach, in combination with a grassroots bottom-up approach. Below, are three recommendations as starting points.

Local/Regional Latina-Focused Tech Networking Events Are Needed

Face-to-face connections with other like-minded Latinas and tech influencers can have a profound impact on the retention of Latinas’ enthusiasm and aspirations as tech entrepreneurs. Creating networking spaces and networking opportunities fosters role modeling, collaboration, guidance and exchange of ideas/resources. The upcoming Latinas Think Big Innovation Summit aims to achieve these goals.

Bring the Incubator/Accelerator to Her

Given Latinas’ high digital connectivity, virtual incubators/accelerators are an ideal model for reaching Latinas who do not have luxury of participating in traditional program models, where in-person attendance is required. While virtual accelerator programs are beginning to emerge, none are exclusively focused on the specific needs of Latina tech entrepreneurs.

One Size Accelerators Do Not Fit All

The level of expertise, experience and resources among Latina tech entrepreneurs is wide ranged. Programs designed to help advance their startups need to be flexible and accommodating, without sacrificing quality of training and mentorship. Besides flexibility in program structure, flexibility in time to achieving milestones is key. Programs need to meet Latina founders where they are at – in their startup journey. While some women might need 12-weeks to complete the program, others might need much more than that. Flexible incubators will offer Latina tech entrepreneurs more control over their startup experience, and a greater sense of self-efficacy, as they are able to better manage both their personal and professional commitments.

College Campuses as Pre-Incubators for Aspiring Latina Innovators

An increasing number of colleges are offering coding courses, computer science majors, entrepreneurship programs and access to innovation labs. Connections to mentors, resources and even seed funding might also be available through colleges, making these educational environments ideal tech ecosystems and incubators for aspiring Latinas innovators. Creating these opportunities at Hispanic-serving institutions, in particular, will help level the playing field for aspiring and emerging Latinas in tech.

REWRITING THE INNOVATION CODE FOR LATINAS IN TECH

Efforts to significantly advance Latinas in technology will require the identification and implementation of disruptive models to meet their needs and circumstances. The tech space needs an innovation makeover, with women – and Latinas of all walks of life – in mind. Most importantly, the technology industry needs to recognize that an industry without women representation is an industry in crisis.

Our country’s global economic power and influence greatly depends on our innovation competitiveness. Investing in the innovation of the fastest growing female population might yield the best return-on-investment in this country’s recent history.

Join us at the Latinas Think Big Innovation Summit, to continue this conversation.

This was bound to happen. After spending three hours writing about 80s music and flying dog-dragons , I can’t stop listening to 80s music. I did, however, graduate to the guitar-shredding Kenny Loggins version of 80s music and F-14s.

Read more…

Rob Reiner says his new movie was inspired by Jack Nicholson. When they were talking to the press about their film, The Bucket List, Nicholson was asked what he wanted to be sure he did before he died. He said he wanted one more great love in his life. Reiner went to As Good as it Gets screenwriter Mark Andrus to write a story about a couple with a chance for one last great romance. That film is And So it Goes, with Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton. He plays an irascible realtor who has alienated just about everyone he knows. She plays a singer who is still mourning her late husband.

In an interview, Reiner said that there are only three kinds of films that get financed by Hollywood studios these days:

… big superhero tent-pole franchise movies, animated films and R-rated raunchy comedies. There’s not one film that I’ve ever made that could get made today by a studio, not one, even A Few Good Men because it’s an adult courtroom drama and studios do not make them any more. And so every movie that I make, have made and will make is always going be independently financed. And the reason they don’t make movies for adults and for people which are the largest bulge of the population is because they are not usually going to the movie the first weekend. They take a while to learn about it, probably word of mouth. It takes a lot of money to release a picture. They want to get the money right away and so they want to make blockbuster-type movies. But there is a lot of money to be made if you give that audience something that they want to see and hopefully with Diane Keaton and Michael Douglas the first time they’ve ever been together, they’ll be interested to see that.

The last time Reiner directed Michael Douglas, he was playing a close-to-perfect character in The American President. This time his character, Oren Little, is a bitter man who wants nothing to do with anyone, including his son and granddaughter. Reiner keeps the audience on Oren’s side by showing us “the evolution which happens in the character as he progresses through the film.”

Here’s a guy who may have had this rough side to begin with but it is exacerbated by the fact that his son had drug problems and he’s been estranged from his son. His wife passed away and he’s basically ready to check out and get out of there. He meets this woman who lives next door in this fourplex and finds out that he has a 10-year-old granddaughter that he didn’t even know he had. It’s through the relationship with them that a softer side of him starts to come out and I think you then ultimately come to like him. But it takes a while.

Reiner described the estrangement between Oren and his son.

Oren’s a lot of bigger-than-life kind of character. He talks about how he has the biggest real estate deals and he has his face on the bus bench. And I think for kids sometimes growing up if your father has a larger-than-life character you can feel diminished. And if you are person who is shy and doesn’t have an outgoing personality you can feel like you’re a failure or like you don’t live up to him, and so I think there was an insecurity with that young guy and he started using drugs as a way to feel better. And then he got into a bad place and maybe the father wasn’t as available as he might have been in those early years. I think of that generation, when the parents were more hooked into each other than they were to the children. I think that in our generation we dote on our children more than our parents did to us.

Both of the lead characters are struggling with grief and loss. But the contrast between their responses is one of the ways we learn about the different ways they approach life and relationships.

I think you have two people that have shut down a part of themselves because of loss. She is trying to reconnect with life by launching this singing career at age 65, but the part of her that thinks of herself as a sexual being is kind of tucked away. He’s thinking, “I’m gonna go away and just live in Vermont and go fishing.” They kind of do this dance around each other for a while until they start to feel like these feelings are reawakened inside of them. But then just like when you’re a young person feeling that, it’s scary. When you’re a young person you’re nervous because you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re kind of fumbling around, but when you get to become an adult you’ve had wives and husbands and you’ve been through it and you know what it’s like to have a loss and how painful it is to have a loss. You’re a little tentative about being with that person for those reasons so the dance looks the same but what at stake is slightly different.

This is Reiner’s third consecutive film featuring a character who is a young girl. Sterling Jerins plays Oren’s granddaughter.

Sterling is really gifted. She came in to read for me and I was like, ‘Whoa, who is this person?’ She was nine years old at the time and she had done a part in World War Z. She played Brad Pitt’s daughter. She had a little experience and she just stuck to it. She wasn’t intimidated at all. That’s a good thing about kids — you don’t know anything to know that you should be intimidated. You can always tell if a kid is going to be good if you look at their parents. Her mother was great and you knew that she was going to be okay. The ones that are troubled you can tell where it’s coming from.

Reiner says he never got any advice directly from his father, the legendary writer/director/actor Carl Reiner, but he learned a great deal from watching him.

When I was 14, 15, 16 during the summer when I was off from school, I would go every single day with him to The Dick Van Dyke Show and watch him. I watched him work with the actors, work with the writers. I saw the stage, the performances and where they put the cameras and all that. So that’s how I learned. It wasn’t so much from him sitting down, “Well, son, this is how you do it.”

He also learned a great deal when he was a young actor on All in the Family, playing the son-in-law of Archie Bunker.

We did over 200 shows in front of a live audience. So I learned a lot about what audiences like, what they don’t like, how stories are structured. I would spend a lot of time in the writing room and I actually wrote some scripts. And from Carroll O’Connor I learned a lot about how you perform and how important the script and story are for the actors. So the actor doesn’t have to push things. You can let the story and the dialogue support you if it’s good. I had great people around me and I took from all the people that was around.

He compared Oren to Archie Bunker.

Carroll O’Connor brought his humanity to the character even though he had these abhorrent views. He’s still a feeling, human being. He loved his wife even though he acted the way he did, and he loved his daughter. Those things come out. I don’t think anybody’s all good or all bad.

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission where Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins made their trip to the Moon. Sure, you could say that there’s likely more tech in our pockets than what was used to put those three into…

July 20 (Reuters) – Illinois children and adults with epilepsy will soon be allowed to use marijuana to ease their symptoms under a law signed on Sunday by Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, the latest in a series of measures loosening restrictions on cannabis by U.S. states.

The move to add epilepsy and other seizure disorders to the list of conditions legal to treat with marijuana or its extracts comes as numerous states have made medical use of the drug legal. Two states, Colorado and Washington, have legalized its recreational use.

“This new law will help alleviate the suffering of many adults and children across the state,” Quinn said in statement. “Epilepsy is a debilitating condition, and this much-needed relief will help to reduce some of its symptoms for those who endure seizures.”

The Illinois law, which takes effect in January, would allow children who experience seizures to be treated with non-smokable forms of cannabis, as long as they have permission from a parent.

“I have a 14-year-old constituent by the name of Hugh who lives with epilepsy,” said Republican state lawmaker Jim Durkin, who co-sponsored the new law. “His parents, Bob and Kelly, want to provide their son with as much relief as possible. Unfortunately, traditional medications and methods have not worked.”

The state is putting the final touches on a broader medical marijuana plan, a tightly regulated program whose regulations were finalized just last week.

Residents will be allowed to apply for permission to use the drug to treat medical conditions in September, and the full program is expected to be up and running early next year, Quinn spokeswoman Katie Hickey said on Sunday.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento; Editing by Dan Grebler)