Watch out, Whoopi and Walters. The women of social enterprise are coming to a stage near you.
Leila Chirayath Janah, Samasource
Last month, I spoke at the launch of a study called Her Code, released by Orange Labs and Women2.0, a nonprofit that supports women in technology. In general, I feel funny talking about my gender in a work context – Silicon Valley seems like a pretty meritocratic place, so if Samasource succeeds I’d like to think it’s because we’re doing something really right as a technology venture and a social business.
But then I heard some of the study’s findings: fewer than 9% of Silicon Valley companies have a female board director, and only 3% of venture-funded companies are run by women. The gender gap in tech starts pretty early: apparently, women receive only 12% of U.S. computer science degrees each year. Since so many of my peers in the startup world run tech companies, this information is disheartening. It also leads to a lot of funny situations at conferences and professional networking events, where people usually assume our VP of Sales (a tall guy) is our CEO, rather than the person whose badge says “CEO.” (No offense to our chief salesman. He thinks this is weird, too.)
So here’s why I’m excited about my upcoming panel at SOCAP09 with Kjerstin Erickson of Forge and other women entrepreneurs: even though we’re in Silicon Valley and compete for the mindshare of the same angel investors as for-profit tech companies, our field is refreshingly different. A 2005 study by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in the UK found that 44% of female entrepreneurs pursue socially-minded goals, while only 30% of male ones do. The Third Sector says that women fill over 70% of nonprofit staff positions.
Kevin Jones is calling our talk The View for Social Entrepreneurship, which I like in terms of style, but maybe not in terms of substance (recent topics covered on the actual show include “swim trunks,” “Sherri gets waxed,” and “custody of Michael Jackson’s children”).
Leila Chirayath Janah is the Founder and CEO of Samasource, a social business that connects women, youth and refugees to life-changing computer-based work. Prior to founding Samasource, she helped start Incentives for Global Health and worked at the World Bank and Ashoka. She holds a BA in African Development Studies from Harvard University.
