Forbes named Boulder the smartest city in the nation for the second year in a row. The editors found that nearly 53% of the Boulder population (age 25 and older) had at least a bachelor’s degree. The magazine qualified ‘Boulder’ as the Metropolitan area surrounding the city, including Longmont, Lafayete, etc. If they were to have surveyed Boulder proper, the percentage of college degrees would have been closer to 70-75%.
These statistics were definitely portrayed last night at my first Boulder Women Engaging Tech (BWET) meeting, which is held every Monday night at 7:00 PM at The Cup. I spent the first ten minutes tweeting the ladies because I didn’t realize that The Cup has another big section in back. As soon as I came upon them I knew I had found my group, as the ratio of Macbooks to women was 1:1.
It was impressive to see such an intelligent group of self starters in action—exchanging strategies, introducing their businesses, getting advice on logos (that was me) and introducing new resources for women (such as Techbootstrap...a collaborative online info. exchange for Boulder tech start-up commnity). It was also exhilirating to be among a group of women that are engaged in technology and entrepreneurism. I think we’re growing, and you can even see it represented in Techstars…100% males last year, 30% (give or take) females this year!
I had a chance to connect again with Julie Penner, the new bada** intern at Lijit, and to FINALLY meet Tara Anderson, who I felt like I already knew due to all of her great work with Lijit. I’m currently beta testing Kary Rivera’s site, Fling it Girl, which allows women to ‘fling up’ items of interest (beauty, tech, health, etc) and vote them to the top in a sort of Digg-like system. Very cool. It was also great to see Jenn Ross of Yallery (a site that allows artists to develop online galleries and socialize with collectors), and Sam Von X, a social media ADDICT and product manager.
I’ll be back at BWET next Monday because I think it’s great. Boulder is smart. And Boulder’s women are REALLY smart.
