I ♥ WebFest #webfestme

I am just back after spending a few brilliant days at the WebFest in Montenegro where I was invited by the host .me registy, CEO Predrag Lesic, after meeting in London at the SeedHack (SeedCamps financial hackathon) where I had won second place with the Saving app I am developing earlier this spring. We we had a chat about GeekGirlMeetup.com and I was later invited to speak at the WebFest 2012 about the international project that is now in Swede, Denmark, Mexico, London, Hong-Kong and from last week, Berlin,  aiming to create more female rolde-models in the startup scene.

WebFest 2012 delivered a wonderful line-up of startup and internet speakers – Intelligent, heart-full and enlightening talks. WebFest was a few days of pure excellence in Montenegro, with national and international speakers like Brian Wong (Kiip.me) and Ryan Wong (About.me) and Ruth Barr (seoMoz) as well as the local movers from the region Dejan Nikolić (Njuz.net aka The regiobal the Onion)Ivan Brezak Brkan (Netokracija).

Taking place at the Montenegro riviera, it was truly like the theme suggested – a webFest – A web conference to note in your calendar for next year. Here are some of the goodness i picked up:

Speaker Brian Wong – Kiip
Brian Wong shook us up properly with his reckless, endless energy and wild at heart talk about his startup Kiip.me.

The 21 year old Mr Wong finished college at 21, worked for Digg where he describes “being fired because he sucked at his job” after 4 months. Luckily he already had an idea, about a moment based advertising system targeting games, that would allow users that be rewarded for leveling up also getting freebies from advertisers, and advertisers only pay on collected freebies. Brian, bought Kiip.me and provides game developers with a system they can implement in between levels that allows players to get freebies when they level-up. The concept that generates over a 140 000  moments per month and growing has got be called genius as it is indeed revolutionizing the ad system.

Brian says, “Out of all the shit we have done as a human nation, from rocket launches to moon-landing, we have invented is a annoying banner that we place close to the important buttons on a n app. You should not pay to get rid of banners. As an (ad) industry you should understand you fugged if people are paying to make you go away.”

Brian continues: “Instead we created great moments of leveling up, instead of banners, we would give these moments of winning, where you already feel great even better by winning a freebie. We only work with big brands to give away trusted rewards.

We want to avoid the painful situation of the old advertising fake-win, when you get some thing free for an entry in an iPhone competition, all you do is sell your soul and end up giving away your credit-card number. Who wants that? We work with cost per engagement, with redeemed freebies. 75 cent which leaves about 50 cent to 1 dollar per redeemed action for the game makers. Its a win for everyone.

No one loves ad companies, we wanted to create something that people loved.”

Brian on entrepreneurship – I love being young, reckless, having endless energy operate properly after 40 hours with no sleep. You should abuse your body now – it’s the only time you can. It’s only age, it’s just a number. Being wild at heart is the most important thing, even older people under 40 who are wild at heart can and should inspire others.
You don’t wake up and say I’m going to being entrepreneur. I played Counterstrike when i was a kid, it made me a better designer, I had perfect mouse precision. I ripped psd, (no twelve year old can pay for psd), then started doing design for others. I was doing something i was wired to do, also the world is constructed that what i do will help the world economy so there something for me to.

If you are starting a company to be entrepreneur, that’s wrong. Take what you know and create some value. Thats entrepreneurship.

Brians thoughts about anyone who is not in Silicon Valley.
You are not as entitled. Graduated graduate from Stanford with an ‘I deserve attitude’ is not very pleasant and it doesn’t mean they produce anything better. The ones that don’t believe deserve anything you try extra hard.
European startup economy has grown as you have revenue, user experience, basic but follow these principles as a european plan. Never mind the short cutters that build for three years with investment with out revenue, just never mind. Make money. Its been two years. I’ve have had at least 100 friends that have started companies and then they pick up and leave to go home. The ones that came there for the right reasons, you need to know it (your reason), if you know it you will succeed!

Here are #1 & #9 out of his points he talked about later, about building successful services.

Existing pattern of behavior #1 What do they(the users) already do? Where do you go when your really drunk?  McDonalds. People are already playing games, look at the the fuel band, it allows you to track your quantified self. Tracking what you are already doing. Karma, recently quietly acquired by Facebook, its similar to similarly to Wrapp, its a gifting app. I had a look at what people already do, and tried making that simple. When are people engaging in your product? Try to make an app that humans like, after all the user is a human being. Apple for example do this do this really well.

Build a story #9 Montenegro has a great story. With you creating good companies what you can do is amazing stories, they have to be shared, a thats how people relate to you, with a good story. You care about bringing the spotlight back. How to craft that story. How do we make it human. It all starts with Love.

Ryan Freitas (About.me)
Ryan Frietas is a previous UI/UX guy who has now moved to product after starting the About.me startup that recently got acquired by AOL.

Ruth Barr on SEO (SeoMoz)
Ruth Barr from SeoMoz gave a great talk on SEO, some affirmative (produce good constant and don’t bother with trix – the search engines will figure it out), and a lot of new info that i felt I can implement and use directly. This techy lady has the gift of gab, and a brilliant sense of humor. Slides provided here.

Startup Competition.
Seeing the regions present and deliver in the startup competition was a pleasure, as there is talent and ambition the region, it was a pleasure seeing the region come together support the winners with the startup competition, sending the winners to New York for 4 moths. Prizes are always going to be important as we do indeed need to reward and encourage the ambitious young entrepreneurs that work focused and ambitiously.

Thanks to
Also not to forget I am so thank for for the Webfest team for providing such a friendly and inviting culture at the WebFest as well being excellent hosts. I cant have asked for a more welcoming stay 🙂

Extra thanks to
Extra thanks for eminent company making my stay a wonderful experience to remember Predrag Lesic, Natasha, Masa Dickson, Mikele Neylon, Brian Wong, Ruth Barr, Ryan Freitas, Kelly, Ze Fontainhas.

The small stuff that makes the difference
Another thing that came to mind is the wifi quality. It’s given that if you have a web conference participants will expect to have wifi. Kraven/demands/ expectations of the wifi rises as web-conference participants usually have two devices, (phone and lap-top) so the wifi will be strained and if you can get in extra access points to support the quality every will be happy. The Splendid Conference Center delivered perfect wifi.
Wifi Points: 5/5.

Web Fest.ME is the largest regional Internet festival dedicated to the promotion and advancement of Internet and society in general. Web Fest .ME consists of on-line competition for the best website/web project and conference that brings together the world best-known experts from all areas of the web industry.

And then we went for a swim in the Adriatic sea

Finding new ways to give with Charity API’s

I recently started working on an autumn project with the the amazing team at TheGivingLab, an R&D department at a charity aiming to find new ways of giving with Charity API’s, a project funded by NESTA amongst others.

When it’s a given that chuggers (charity muggers) hasseling you on the street for a signup doesn’t really work, and neither does starving babies on posters, we need to go further than choosing between several old-fashioned ideas of giving, making place for contemporary ideas.

By early 2013 we aim to have 5 launched ideas proving that charity API’s is the way to go and we are inviting developers, designers, UI/UX and idea-creators to a series of Hack Days we are running this autumn.
We aiming to hack together asquirky and loving ideas as possible like last week we already worked with Windows8 Code Weekend and Dev4Good, read more about the ideas here.

TheGivingLab has 3 more hack days coming up this autumn, here are the confirmed ones:

  • Mark 13+14th of October in you calendar. Eventbrite - GeekGirlMeetup Hackathon with The Giving Lab
  • Games 4 Good, with TIGA (International Gaming Association) at Birmingham University 17+18th of November.
  • TheGivingLab Charity Hack days at GoogleCampus on the 24+25th of November. The Theme is #holidayHack Eventbrite - TheGivingLAB - Hackdays 24+25th of November

Links to the previous and already hosted Hackathons:


Proud to be a GeekGirl

Today I was on the Rättviseförmedlingens list of digital innovators, inventors and business leaders for co-funding GeekGirlmeetup.

It was wonderful to see Thérèse Mannheimer (Allbright, Lissly), Javeria Rizvi Kabani (Swedish Institute, ZeroSilence), Anna Oscarsson (GeekGirlMeetup Öresund, Kvittar), Pernilla Näsfors, Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder (internet independence and security) och Johanna Koljonen (SR, #TalkAboutIt) on the list.

All i can say here is thank you Lina Thomsgård for starting Equalisters. It alowwed us to create lists of alternatives to the prevailing norms that work! Way to go Lina, we´ve come a long way since that garage editorial room in 1995 at Brus as teenagers.

Rättviseförmedlingen is called Equalisters in English. Equal for equality, and listers for all the people who contribute to the massive lists that we compile of people who can serve as alternatives to prevailing norms. [Read more here]

Ideas know no borders

Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus vistits Stockholm, Sweden today to give a talk om his new book “Social Entrepreneurship”. Mohammad is known for his work with Grameen Bank that he was awarded the Nobel prize in peace for. Grameen Banc loans money to female entrepreneurs, due to their capability of paying back and using the profit to invest in their kids education, and reinvesting in the company with aims to take them out of poverty. Today he gave a broader talk on Social entreprenreurship and how ideas spread.

“Social entrepreneurship isn’t taking 10% of a comapnies profit and giving it to charity or a festival you want to be closely associated with even if it could be a good idea, thats profiling. Social Entrepreneurship is is making business in a way where an idea that benefits the world, validates return on investement”, Mohammad says.

A question raised was how can Swedish companies become better att social entrepreneurship? Take a part of your % that you use for CSR and and invest them in a fond with the soul aim to develop the companies good ideas, social ideas with aims to make money.

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“Good ideas know no borders.”- Mohammad Yunus.

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Live stream part one, Live stream Part two (above)

More about Yunus from Wikipedia:

Stockholm Startup School for the future bright minds of tomorrow

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Photo: Niki Lundberg

Today i have been invited to a participatory idea development for the Stockholm Startup School, combining technology and entrepreneurship for 15-18 year olds, initiated by The City Of Stockholm.
Together with Christer Holger and Hans Renman (Tänk Om), multitalent Isabella Lövengrip (Egoboost) Walter Naeslund (Honesty) and highschool student Melina Nilsson Nikopoulous (Melinas), Marcus Tägtström, Kärnhuset. A pleasent day with lots of post-its and love for the future bright minds of tomorrow, we are designing the school we wish for. The school will start autumn 2012, more info soon, and heres a bit of reading for now.

If you prefer readning in Swedish, heres my Nya Affärer post about Stockholm Startup School.

Week 6: New Egypt Now

(Image from Fffound)

It was only a few moths ago I was visiting Egypt with the Swedish Institute giving a talk on the internet being the infrastructure for change for young leaders, journalist and changemakers. I was invited again to give a talk on GeekGirlMeetup for the SheEntrepreneur program, a mentorship program with entrepreneurs from the MENA region initiated by the Swedish Institute.

My adept, sadly enough did not have the opportunity to show up, but i had a chance to meet interesting women from the region, that put a strong perspective on their (and my) everyday entrepreneurship.

During the last evening presentations Mubarak stepped down, and it was an emotional moment, without a doubt. The girls called it New Egypt, im from New Egypt.
That night was the entreprenuers freedanced. And like we say at the Kaospilots, if I can’t dance its not my revolution.

Young Swedish Entrepreneurs on the rise.
This was not the only young entrepreneurs i met this week. I also had the priviledge of being invited to DAC (Digital Arts Center) to be on a panel for the future bright minds of tomorrow in IT, presenting their ideas. With Peter Sandberg aka @poppetotte from Disruptive.nu and a few others we had the chance to give them feedback on ideas and presentations. Thank you, it was very inspiring!

(Image from Fffound)

Week 52 Bono on failure and learning

I was asked by Internetworld to give my take on 2010 happenings, and what i was hoping for in 2011. The whole thing made me think a bit more about the whole act of leadership and the responsibility that comes with developing people as well as ideas. This reflects upon the book that i was sent by Emil Ems.

After attending my friend Ph.D David Bismarks course on Publishing and Social Media earlier this year i met Emil Ems, another curious Ph.D I taught how to blog. He was set with a wonderful skill, he was very curious and had an ambition to learn, so he just needed a push in the right direction and he was on his way. What i did not know, was that he was to sum up his travelling diaries from California and make a book about it. A first “preview” book was printed and sent to me, limited edition issue 10/10. Perfect for christmas reading. Stories and pictures from my favourite universities, yay!

This act of learning, speaks to me of the polarity of 2010 in the way that we in Sweden, a high-tech nation, yet we still have people who don’t know how to use mail, or what a browser is etc. Emil is not one of the people, and probably never will be, due to his curious nature, and will to find out how things work, finding another way of solving current issues.

However we have a huge digital devide in Sweden where closer to a milion (1/9) of Swedens population is still uses the internet very seldomly or never. As not everyone posesses the the curious nature that will find a way to learn like Emil, we still cant afford having illeteracy in Sweden. The IIS aka .SE is is doing a wonderful job minimizing the digital devide, and conquering the digital analfabetism that cripples so many, by offering to create projects that teach especially elderly that are over represented in the group of digital illeteracy.

The act of learning is a tedious part, and like many new things we learn, you have to be comfortable sitting in a chair – knowing nothing. Accepting that you know nothing. That can be a pretty stressful concept for a lot of people, especially if you are taking to much information, and we can’t consume it. A good teachers role is to see when the student has had enough, and can walk out of the session feeling sucessfully taught, and proud with what they have learned. This way a student can start making new thoughts and new argumentations for logical ideas.

But.

We know that people get stuck. And  frustrated. Even angry. (Including me) The point is that even if we don’t manage to learn everything, its not a failure, if you have really tried, and learned from it. Edward de Bono says it best with his famous quote:

“Fully justified venture which did not succeed for reasons which could not have been predicted and which were beyond control” – Edward de Bono

Being curious and willing to test new things will make you fail, you can count on it. We need to start learning that at that given point you know what didn’t work. It’s not the end of the world. It never has been, it never will be. And it automiatically let’s you test new ways, new possibilities. I’m hoping that more people in leading positions take it to their heart that people need to develop, test, and learn how to fail successfully to not grow old at mind. Development (people and products) is a question of leadership advocacy, and tech is just the device. I hope we all in our everyday leadership with our dreams and goals start keep this in mind.

Summing up:

  • Some mistakes are better learned from watching others
  • We should be learning by failing, as if we are learning to walk.
  • We should welcome some failures, as we then know we have at least given it a fair shot.

Worth the read and look:

Week 48 Cest tres populár

Proud to present, GeekGirlMeetup was featured in the leading Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter wednesday last week, with almost 70 hits per minute during lunch time, and hundreds of comments, and still the top ten after a week, that is what DN calls, popular.

The title was changed a few times, and from GeekGirls Sweeet Revenge(.jpg), loosley miss-interpreted to Sweet Geek Girls Revenge(.jpg). It was later, more correctly called, “The Dream Network (.jpg)” on the front side of the economy section.

With no one to take revenge upon, we are happy about the the article as it communicates the our aim with new networks and local rolemodels within internet, code and startups and creating the future we need and want for women in the tech scene.

  • Lina Thomsgård at Rättviseförmedlingen also added us up on the list of internetexperts, entrepreneurs for seminars, panels and juries. Thank you @LinaT!
  • 2 students from the University are writing their final thesis about GeekGirlMeetup as a phenomenon, exciting! More about this later.

TALKING ABOUT FEAR AND ANGER AS CONSTRUCTIVE FUEL

  • I am remembering how important it is to use your your fear constructively after discussions with musican Rebekka Karijord, who adresses it more like “Wear it like a crown“, and yet did this fantastic interpretation of my favourite “Smells like teen spirit”.
  • (And i promise to never be late for dinner again)

  • The Egyptian election makes me remeber my visit to Egypt with the Swedish Institute. To sum it up im linking in Måns Adlers startup, Bambuser tweet on the democratic importance of his start up service Bambuser.

  • I also cant seem to forget the Harrasmap that both me and Joakim Jardenberg listened to as we were both speaking at the YLVP´s Cairo Social Media Cafe this passed month. @jocke sums it up really well.

Jardenberg also disses the new apps for the iPad, by the major Swedish Media houses, and wether i agree or not I am suggesting some Margret Wheatly reading of  for the people in charge of the apps, preferably Leadership and the new Science.

WIKILEAKS AND ASSANGE

@brokep micro finance focused startup Flattr makes it possible to donate to whatever you like.

[Edit: this is not avaliable anymore, as Flattr was based on a Paypal Plugin. More about that at TechChrunch, via The Guardian]