Noveck Speaks At SheTek, American Entrepreneurship Panel And More
Noveck At She-Tek
- Beth Simone Noveck, who is the State of New Jersey’s first Chief Innovation Officer, spoke to SheTek’s annual conference last week.
- SheTek, a 501(c)3 organization, is addressing the need to increase the percentage of women represented in the technology industry.
- Noveck spoke about how we can use technology and new ways of working to become better at solving major challenges (called “wicked problems”) in the world.
- Ask “what are the things that you’re passionate about and that you care about and want to use technology to make a difference?” she said.
- She noted that “if we can develop our problem-solving skills, we can do a lot, to do good, but also to do well.”
- Re-framing problems is one way to come up with solutions, but we also need the skills to implement the solutions, she said.
Jeanne Gray Hosts Entrepreneurship Discussion
Jeanne Gray of American Entrepreneurship Today | Screenshot by Esther Surden
- American Entrepreneurship Today’s Jeanne Gray in partnership with Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic hosted a diverse panel of women entrepreneurs, investors and others to discuss various aspects of building a business.
- Joy Marcus, who teaches entrepreneurship at Princeton, said that she tells students to go after big markets with high impacts as they may only get one or two tries to get it right.
- Entrepreneurs should build an iteration of the product and get as much feedback from the potential market as they can, early on.
- Kim Lalande, CEO of KEY, told the audience to know what you are good at and then arm yourself with team members, mentors and advisers who can fill in the gaps.
- For example, Lalande is not an engineer, but she found a strong engineer early on.
Innovation+ Chat
L-R: Victoria Brown, James Barrood and Kelcey Gosserand | Screenshot by Esther Surden
- James Barrood of Innovation+ held a chat with Kelcey Gosserand, an investor at IBM in supply chain and blockchain companies, and Victoria Brown, who wrote “Digital Goddess: The Unfiltered Lessons of a Female Entrepreneur.”
- For women who are founding an enterprise for the first time, it’s really important to develop a community that includes other female founders, investors, and various angel investors, Gosserand advised.
- Brown, who had built a company, said that her book centers on the concept of transparency in business.
- She urged founders to put the “negative stuff out there” clearly and openly as soon as they can.
- If you do that, you’ll earn your investors’ trust, she said.
Newark Venture Partners
- Newark Venture Partners has raised an $85 million fund, double the size of its original fund, the VC firm said in a blog post.
- The NVP team says that it continues its mission to make great investments, generate oversized returns and give back to the city of Newark.
- NVP says it will continue deploying capital nationally and in markets where it has strong networks and market leadership in its corner, such as healthtech and supply chain.
- The venture team will now lead or participate in seed rounds with investments up to $3 million.
- Joining the NVP team is Vaughn Crowe who will be a managing partner.
