Women have traditionally been underrepresented in fields like science and technology — but these 10 kickass ladies are changing that. And did we mention that all of these women have yet to celebrate their 30th birthdays? From cool new apps to innovative non-profits that support social good, the tech projects that these young women have undertaken have the power to change lives. Read on for some major tech inspiration from the top women in tech under 30:
Marcela Sapone: Sapone is the co-founder of Hello Alfred, a nifty app that acts as a butler in your pocket. Fire up the app to take advantage of services like grocery shopping, dry cleaning pickup, home cleaning, and more. The subscription service dreamed up by this former NYC Venture Fellow frees up more time for its users at a surprisingly affordable price point.
Katelyn O’Shaughnessy: How cool would it be to get a custom itinerary for an upcoming trip delivered straight to your smartphone? O’Shaughnessy’s on it with her app TripScope, which connects users with travel agents. She’s bringing the “outdated” model of the travel agent into the 21st century, with wanderlust-inducing results.
Rebecca Garcia: Coding unlocks so many possibilities in tech. Garcia knows that — which is why she co-founded the non-profit CoderDojo NYC to teach youth how to code. Even the White House has taken notice of Garcia’s efforts; she was awarded the Tech Inclusion “Champion of Change” award at 1600 Penn in 2013.
Amber Venz Box: You can thank (blame?) Venz Box for all the money you’ve blown on cute outfits inspired by your fav Insta stars. Venz Box is the co-founder of Liketoknow.it, which delivers an email full of shoppable links to users every time they “like” an Instagram post, if the poster has Liketoknow.it enabled. With her new concept, Venz Box has found a way to make Instagram monetizable for thousands of Instagram style personalities, and she’s made online shopping even easier to boot.
Vanessa Hurst: Hurst is the founder of CodeMontage, an organization that matches newbie coders with non-profits who need coding services. Coders get valuable real-world experience to bolster their resumes and sharpen their skills, while non-profits get coding work done that would’ve cost a pretty penny if they’d hired coders elsewhere.
Julia Kaganskiy: Kaganskiy has been bringing together the worlds of art and technology in interesting ways for years, first as the Editor-at-Large of The Creators Project, a collaboration between VICE and Intel that explored the intersection of the arts, culture, and technology. Today, she serves as the director of NEW INC, in partnership with the New Museum in NYC. NEW INC is a museum-led incubator that supports creatives in the fields of art, tech, and design through professional development programs and collaborative workspaces.
Alexa von Tobel: Harvard Business School dropout von Tobel founded personal finance website LearnVest.com to make it easier for millennials to save and invest smartly, without the typical high price tag associated with traditional financial planning services. The site connects users to financial planners online, as well as a suite of planning tools. Von Tobel recognized that if it can’t be done on the web, then millennials are just probably not going to do it — and sound financial planning that’s affordable is too important to pass up.
Karlie Kloss: Supermodel Kloss is so much more than a pretty face. Last year, Kloss partnered with coding boot camp The Flatiron School to provide “Kode with Karlie” scholarships to young women across the U.S. Twenty-one scholarship recipients — more than half of whom had no prior coding experience — spent two weeks learning the programming language Ruby. More “Kode with Karlie” scholarships will be offered in 2016.
Maran Nelson: At just 24 years old, Nelson is already making huge moves in tech — artificially. Nelson is the founder of Clara Labs, an artificial intelligence start up focused on creating a virtual “employee” who can take care of tedious and repetitive work tasks. So far, the employee can already respond to emails, schedule and RSVP to meetings, and even make restaurant reservations.
Nicole Hu: As co-founder of One Concern, Hu is harnessing the power of tech for good. The start up uses big data and artificial intelligence tools to build systems that can respond swiftly and efficiently to emergencies, like natural disasters. So far, One Concern has analyzed 11 million structures and modeled nearly 15 thousand fault lines.
What other female tech entrepreneurs inspire you? Share them with us in the comments below!
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