On August 14, 2013, Sacramento WITI presented a special event highlighting a panel of female entrepreneurs who have used technology to create successful businesses. The event was hosted by Vision Services Plan (VSP) at their corporate office in Rancho Cordova, California and had 60 registered attendees who were eager to hear these women's encouraging and inspiring stories. We thank event sponsor VSP, members of SARTA and WITI for attending.
The panel featured Elise Bauer, a former Silicon Valley tech executive who went on to create the popular and award-winning food blog Simply Recipes. Elise's advice: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!" Elise discussed how she started her food blog over 10 years ago after unfortunate circumstances, job loss and illness, left her back living at home with her parents. Instead of letting down times get the best of her, Elise embarked on her journey to cooking. Thereafter, she began to share her wonderful creations online and now years later has one of the most visited cooking websites in the world.
The panel also featured HomeZada co-founder, Elizabeth Dodson. Beth started HomeZada when she was in the middle of a home improvement project and went looking for software to help manage the project and found that there was nothing available to the individual homeowner. Through HomeZada, homeowners can capture their home inventory by documenting possessions and storing the information online. They also can manage home re-model and construction projects. Beth used her creativity and marketing ingenuity to build what is now a successful online business.
Next, the event featured Dr. Judith Kjelstrom (aka Dr. Judy). Dr. Judy discovered what she wanted to do later in life. With a rich background in health sciences and biotechnology education, Dr. Judy directs the UC Davis Biotechnology Program and the Advanced Degree Program for corporate employees. She is the co-director for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute-Integrating Medicine into Basic Science (IMBS) Graduate Training Program and the program coordinator for the NIH T32 Graduate Training Program in Biomolecular Technology as well as the innovative Designated Emphasis in Biotechnology graduate program. Dr. Judy was able to grow her program from 10 to 250 students! Dr. Judy enjoys being a pioneer in her field and teaching the next generation the importance of using technology to create medical and scientific advancements.
Last, but not least, Maelene Wong and Jeni Lee discussed how they are changing medicine, as people know it. In 2012, Maelene and Jeni founded ViVita Technologies, Inc., a company that is revolutionizing the regenerative medicine and tissue engineering in the medical industry. Maelene and Jeni talked about the innovative process to generate replacement heart valves from animal-derived tissues, which help patients, avoid the need for life-long medication and repeated surgeries.
Overall, it was an excellent panel with an engaging audience. At the end, attendees were able to connect and nurture professional relationships while enjoying refreshments and drinks. The panelists appreciated the good work of the WITI leadership team involved in Sacramento and showed an interest in attending the WITI Sacramento Regional Network's events in the future. Based on the enthusiastic responses from the audience and our sponsor VSP; we plan to do this again next year.
We welcome your comments and feedback.
WITI Sacramento Leadership Team
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/WITISacramento
Twitter: @WITISacramento
LinkedIn Group: Sacramento Network, WITI
Opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of WITI.
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