Is it just us, or has the New York Tech Meetup gotten more female-friendly since it was taken over by a Girl Scout? Last year New Work City-based user experience designer Whitney Hess was briefly the only woman last year running for a spot on the board of the New York Tech Meetup—the largest tech organization in New York City—before she dropped out without comment, leaving 17 men in the race for two board seats in the newly incorporated nonprofit.
But this year? There are at least four women vying for one open seat in addition to Ms. Hess:
- Alexis Goldstein of Girl Develop It,
- Wei Zhao of Seatig,
- June Cohen, executive director of TED Media, and
- Jalak Jobanputra, director of philanthropic venture capital firm Omidyar Network.
That makes five out of 20 candidates.
Neither Ms. Hess nor Ms. Zhao mention gender in their campaign statements. Ms. Cohen’s, Ms. Jobanputra, and Ms. Goldstein’s have not been posted on the NYTM site yet.
Additionally, at least three other women were nominated but haven’t yet accepted their respective nominations: Vanessa Hurst of Paperless Post, Elena Silenok of Clothia, and web designer Courtney Bolton.
The 13-seat New York Tech Meetup board already features lady tech luminary Esther Dyson as well as NYTM cofounder Dawn Barber, a recently named Pipeline Fund fellow. Last year, NYTM decided to make four board seats available to the general membership and held an election for two of the seats; Anil Dash and Evan Korth were elected.
