NJTW News: Newark Tech Week, Women In Tech, Closing The Digital Divide & More

[This article was taken from NJTW News, an NJTechWeekly.com newsletter. Sign up for it here.]

Newark Tech Week took place last week with a number of meetings and experiences both online and off.

NJTechWeekly.com attended a Newark Tech Week online event called “Women In Tech – The Virtual Experience,” moderated by Kelly Outing of Equal Space.
The speakers were: Loralyn Mears of STEERus; Judith Sheft of the NJ Commission of Science, Innovation and Technology (CSIT); Anum Hussain of Below the Fold News; and Flisadam Pointer of IEMC and ENVERT.
Mears said she had been humbled “to the core” while starting her company.
“Until you do it [start a company] you have no idea what’s really involved. You can read about it all day long, but it’s totally not the same.”
Hussain said that fundraising was her biggest roadblock, as it is for many women in tech.
“We raised pennies in comparison to what other startups have done and what we need.”
Sheft recommended that women and minority startup founders who are challenged by skeptics have confidence in their vision, but ask a lot of questions, and keep moving forward.
Pointer told the audience that they can enter the tech world via non-traditional routes.
For example, journalists have tapped into the tech space to keep themselves afloat as podcasters.

Another Newark Tech Week event discussed closing the digital divide in Newark.
The speakers were: Anthony Avent of the Office of Information Technology, City of Newark; Diane Hill of the Center for Health Equity and Community Engagement at Rutgers-Newark; Liana Summey of the Newark School of Data Science & Information Technology; Gregory Porumbescu of the Transparency and Governance Center at Rutgers-Newark (TGC).
The panel was moderated by Suzanne Piotrowski of the TGC.
Panelists agreed that making sure the public has equitable access to broadband and devices is essential.
However, ensuring that citizens have a support structure is also important.
Citizens need training on app and computer use, for example, and they require services that can help them with continued troubleshooting, the panelists said.

Attention autonomous vehicle (AV) technologists in New Jersey.
The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) announced a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) for the “Trenton Mobility & Opportunity: Vehicles Equity System (MOVES) Project.”
Trenton MOVES explores the feasibility of providing safe, equitable, affordable, and sustainable high-quality mobility through the deployment of 100 AVs throughout the state capital.
This on-demand automated transit system will serve 90,000 residents of Trenton.
More information can be found here. The deadline to respond is Feb. 11.

James Barrood of Innovation+ recently interviewed Jiren Parikh of Ghost Robotics and Brendan Englot of Stevens Institute of Technology about their robotics work.
Much of Englot’s research at Stevens centers on how to give robots improved situational awareness in very tough environments, such as under water, Englot said.
Ghost Robotics uses a novel technology to create quadruped robots that can be used in military environments.
The company is currently selling these robots to the U.S. and its allies, Parikh noted.

Esther is the Founder and Editor in Chief of NJ Tech Weekly