Austin Startup Week kicks off Monday with a focus on women in technology.
But this year, instead of gathering at Capital Factory in downtown Austin, everyone is joining remotely from home offices everywhere.
It’s the 10th annual event and no one could have imagined that a decade later this event would need to take place in the virtual world because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has caused a lot of us to go on lockdown.
But thanks to its organizers, Jacqueline Hughes and Joshua Baer, the show does go on in a virtual venue called Hopin. And the lineup is pretty spectacular. It even features a Startup Crawl showcasing dozens of startups that will take place on Tuesday evening using the virtual platform Sococo.
On Monday, the women in tech summit features an hour-long fireside chat at 12:05 p.m. with Courtney Caldwell, co-founder and CEO of ShearShare and Nancy Fecnay, angel investor and entrepreneur in residence at Notley Ventures.
And at 2:20 p.m., an event organized by DivInc called Sistas on the Rise: The Challenges and Successes of Women of Color Founders featuring Janice Omadeke, founder of The Mentor Method, April Dominguez, founder of Handsome App, Zawadi Bryant, CEO of Nightlight Pediatric Urgent Care and Rima Imad Fadlallah, Founder of Thawra Network.
At 3:15 p.m. Gordon Daugherty of Capital Factory will do a Fireside Chat with Nicole Glaros, Chief Investment Strategy Officer of Techstars.
And at 4 p.m., a Women in Tech Startup Showcase takes place featuring Mollie Duckworth, partner at Baker Botts, Jim Breyer, Founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, Brittany Hill, Founder and CEO of Accelerist, Ari Palmer, Founder and CEO of TaxTaker, Wei Escala, CEO of Eggschain, Monica Landers, Founder and CEO of StoryFit, Toni Portmann, Walkabout Collaborative and Kerry Rupp, general partner of True Wealth Ventures.
The day concludes with more than a dozen speakers from throughout Austin’s technology ecosystem talking about The 2020 State of Entrepreneurship.