NYC Tech Innovators Sponsored By Heineken: Rachel Sklar And Glynnis MacNicol Of "TheLi.st," Placing Their Bet On Women In Tech

I’m really interested in how we can get more girls into tech, is this something you guys are doing? Glynnis: “That’s one of our goals. We have it sort of staggered our approach as our funding comes through from the Knight Foundation. One of the things we plan on doing is the newsletter (a thrice-weekly tastemaker email dispatch), and then also events and conferences. I am big on women who were successful, stopped to have kids, and are getting back in and are starting their own businesses now - they need just as much tech savvy as the ten year olds. You know there’s a real divide here and I want to make sure that women who are now coming back into the work force and starting their own companies are able to speak to the coder who might live in eastern Russia with as much assurance as a 22-year old guy.” Rachel: “We want women to be able to never feel nervous or like they don’t know enough. Because women are basically schooled from such an early age to question whether or not they know what they are talking about, whether or not they are being pushy or have the authority and particularly when you’re running a business and you’re hiring people of expertise that you don’t have, you know, there’s a certain vocabulary that at minimum it’s very useful to have, and it’s the difference between having it and not having it.” So this is set up as a profitable business model? G: “Yes.” R: “Yes we think there is a lot of money to be made by taking women seriously. That’s a quote from Cindy Gallop.”