TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

Kate Agnew is stepping in to replace Jacque Urick as the Managing Director of Girls in Tech Minneapolis / St. Paul this winter.

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By Teresa Novellino, Portfolio.com

“Jacqueline Urick has been playing videogames since she was a kid, starting out with an old-school Atari console and a Commodore 64 PC. Decades later, however, she’s still not quite at ease in the virtual world—a place she says women can feel like the odd players out.

“There’s certain things that happen in games that make it clear to you, as a woman, that you’re not the first person they thought of when they created this game,” said Urick. “It’s not the chain-mail bikini that bothers me. It’s the stuff that is awkward within the game, like when your character is walking and walks like a guy, or when your female character sits like a guy in a dress.”

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An unfolding narrative shows how two local women are taking the charge to rally local females within Minnesota’s technology industry.

Jacque Urick is the new Managing Director of Girls in Tech Minneapolis-St.Paul chapter.  Girls in Tech was founded in San Francisco (2007) with the goal of empowering, educating and elevating status of women in technology fields, and aims especially to inspire young women to pursue entrepreneurial technology careers.  The  networking group has a strong emphasis on supporting the next generation of females and features quarterly meetups — the next one scheduled for June 29th at Moscow on the Hill.

Liz Tupper is Managing Director of She’s Geeky, an annual 2 day unConference exclusively focused around bringing together women in STEM fields. The inaugural Minnesota She’s Geeky took place last August and drew around 100 local women together around technology, lifestyle and business; the second local event is scheduled for September 23 & 24th at the Science Museum of Minnesota (details to follow).

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The Minneapolis chapter of Girls in Technology (GIT) has named Jacque Urick to Managing Director, a role previously held by Urvashi Mishra, who launched the Minneapolis group                                                                                                   earlier this May.

Girls in Tech was founded in San Francisco (2007) with the goal of empowering, educating and elevating status of women in technology fields, and aims especially to inspire young women to pursue entrepreneurial technology careers. Membership today is 12,000 strong throughout 57 international chapters which organize educational workshops and networking events to foster the growth and success of women in the technology sector.

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She’s Geeky – the unConference designed to “inspire women technologists for the future and advance systemic change in tech culture” – is coming to Minnesota on August 6 & 7th, marking the first time the event will take place outside either coast.

Why Minnesota? Mostly thanks to the persistent efforts of Elizabeth Tupper, who attended last November’s She’s Geeky unConference in Washington D.C. with the goal of bringing it to her home state.

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