Girls, Get Your Edtech-Game On

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Girls, Get Your Edtech-Game On

Feb 19, 2013

GIRLFRIENDS, BRING YOUR EDTECH GAME: Here's a smart idea that we're delighted to see Noodle Education's Sehreen Noor Ali make happen: Edtech Women aims to be a networking community of women in education technology. And to give a real kick to its start, the first live gathering will be a Monday night dinner at SXSWedu. (Step right up! Get yer tickets here.)

Over the years (okay, decades), we've read and even written a few articles about the challenges facing women in ascending to the top job in startups. There are the standouts: Marissa Meyer, now CEO of Yahoo, and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, have succeeded brilliantly, of course. (Even so, although Sandberg advocates stepping up in her upcoming March 12 book, Lean In, she concedes she passed on the CEO job at LinkedIn because she was going to have a second child.)

Education technology, by contrast, is brimming with talented women. Why so? Some have been educators; others more classic entrepreneurs. What connects so many, however, is their sense of mission: that helping to improve education for children--possibly millions of them--is a powerful enough goal to make up for all the missed meals, bumpy plane flights, long hours and sheer teeth-gritting anxiety that comes with the CEO job.

What do you think? Add your comments below--or catch up with Betsy at the Edtech Women's dinner in Austin.

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