Why has sexism festered for so long in Silicon Valley?

Silicon Valley and the wider tech industry have a problem with women. At least, that is what you might conclude after a week that has seen a leading tech investor resign after admitting his involvement in sexual harassment. In just two weeks, two powerful Silicon Valley investors have resigned from the firms they cofounded after women accused them of sexual harassment according to CNN. The men, 500 Startups cofounder Dave McClure and Binary Capital cofounder Justin Caldbeck, didn’t just cross the line once, according to the allegations. Multiple women —…

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Ethiopian Entrepreneur Sophia Bekele spoke on #GES Panel in San Francisco

DotConnectAfrica speaks at #GES-Global Entrepreneurship Summit #AfricanEntrepreneurs #SiliconValley

Sophia Bekele, Founder/ CEO DotConnectAfrica, Yes2dotAfrica was invited to speak on Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) forum, hosted by the White House and USAID on “African Entrepreneurs & Silicon Valley Forum: Bridging Gaps and Making Connections” The forum held at the Silicon Valley Bank’s WeWork Golden Gate location, San Francisco, California, and hosted over 100 delegates comprised of VCs, impact investors, African diaspora entrepreneurs, tech leaders, policymakers and U.S. government members from Washington DC and San Francisco, focused on spurring and supporting innovation ecosystems and investment in Africa. Various high-level panel…

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Politics curtailing Silicon Valley’s fast-growing financial ties with Russia’s tech sector: Entrepreneurs, investors say

SAN MATEO, Calif. (AP) – Entrepreneurs and investors say Silicon Valley’s fast-growing financial ties with Russia’s tech sector are being slowed down by current political tensions between the White House and the Kremlin. “It’s safe to say a lot of investors here are taking a step back to see how the situation will unfold,” said Alexandra Johnson, who manages a $100 million venture fund called DFJ VTP Aurora, a Menlo Park, Calif., branch of Russian bank VTB. For decades, Russia’s sophisticated scientists and engineers remained at arm’s length from Silicon…

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Start-ups founded by immigrants are creating jobs all over America

ON APRIL 19th Jack Markell, the governor of Delaware, is due to visit a new factory being built in his state by Bloom Energy, a start-up based in Silicon Valley. Bloom makes clean power-generation systems using a novel fuel-cell technology. It is investing over $40m in its facility in Newark and plans to hire hundreds of people. Some will be carworkers who lost their jobs in 2008 when Chrysler shuttered a factory that once stood on the same site. Gary Convis, Bloom’s chief operations officer, says that the company has…

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