5 Ventures Founded by Women That You Should Check Out

Folks, I am a big supporter of women in tech and nonprofit ventures like the Women Startup Challenge that showcases women-led startups. This is important because women still make up only a quarter of the tech industry workforce. And women who work in computer and mathematical occupations make 84 cents to every dollar a man earns, according to Narrow the Gapp.

Here are 5 startups founded, or cofounded, by women that you should check out:

1. Let Girls Learn is is a U.S. government initiative launched by the First Lady and the President that helps adolescent girls attain a quality education and enables them to reach their full potential. Educating girls is essential to healthy and thriving communities but, globally, 62 million girls are not in school, and barriers to adolescent girls completing school are particularly significant. In some countries, fewer than 10% of teenage girls complete secondary school.

2.  Hopscotch is an app that teaches kids to code. The build-your-own-games iPad app introduces a new programming language that's really visual. Users can drag-and-drop blocks of code, essentially arranging them like building blocks.

3. theBoardlist is a curated talent marketplace for business leaders to recommend, discover and connect highly qualified women across industries with tech board opportunities. According to the organization, 75-78% of private funded tech company boards have no women. theboardlist is helping to #changetheratio.

4. OmniSpeech develops speech extraction software for enhancing voice quality in mobile communication devices and in VoIP (Voice over IP) and speech recognition platforms. Founded by renowned engineer Dr. Carol Espy-Wilson, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and head of the Speech Communication Lab at the University of Maryland, OmniSpeech takes a novel approach to the challenge of delivering clean speech in noisy environments.

5. Front is a tool to help you better collaborate with internal teams. This is about seamless internal communication. You can have real-time collaboration, assign who responds to what emails, set reminders for yourself, and develop auto-responses. Front also works with third party integrations, and lets you create your own plugins.

What are your favorite ventures that were founded by women? And if you could create any organization you want, what would you build?

[Photo Credit: Dennis Skley]