Ecopreneurist

Women entrepreneurs, don’t miss the Keiretsu Forum’s 4th Annual Summer Solstice panel discussion tonight about “How Women Investors and Entrepreneurs Will Revive the California Economy.”

The event will bring together the Bay Area’s most talented minds to:

•          Foster a collaborative atmosphere between women and the angel community
•          Confront the critical issues facing women entrepreneurs and investors today
•          Drive the recovery of the California economy
•          Build businesses and invest in thought out ventures
•          Explore compelling investment opportunities

In addition to a networking reception, attendees will hear brief presentations and a panel discussion regarding the larger role women investors and entrepreneurs need to play in the California economy. More than ever, the angel community is eager to attract women investors. Women investors are considered a largely untapped market that is critical to “financial and mentoring support for new companies.”

REGISTRATION


Please register at http://summersolstice.eventbrite.com $25 by June 26, $40 thereafter.

PANELISTS AND KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

The Summer Solstice will feature a unique panel of business women who will discuss a myriad of issues confronting the entrepreneurial community today. The panel itself will be comprised of notable members and entrepreneurs from the Keiretsu Forum and Women’s Initiative.

Agenda

5:30-6:30pm     Registration, Networking, and Booth Exhibitors

6:45-6:50pm      Welcome and Opening Remarks

6:50-7:10pm     Key Note Speaker

7:10-7:20pm     Panelist introductions

7:20-8:00pm     Panel Discussion

About the Keynote Speakers

Amanda Wallis is the Managing Director, Market Executive for the Northern California and Nevada Regions of U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management.  Wallis is a member of Bank of America’s San Francisco Leadership Team, comprised of the company’s top executives in the market. The team manages the bank’s ongoing relationships with local community leaders and organizations and makes decisions about how to use Bank of America’s resources to support the San Francisco community.

With more than 30 years of financial services experience, Wallis joined U.S. Trust from American Express in London where she served as executive director, and Europe, Middle East, Africa Region Head of the American Express Private Bank. In that role she led a region with seven international locations.  Prior to her role at American Express, Wallis spent over 10 years at the legacy Private Bank of Bank of America. During this period Wallis served in several leadership roles in San Francisco and London.

Wallis earned her undergraduate degree from Smith College and completed the executive program in Leadership and Managing Change at Stanford Business School. In 2007 she was named one of the “20 Most Influential Women in European Wealth Management” by Global Investor Magazine.

Rashmi Sinha is co-founder and CEO for SlideShare, the world’s largest community for sharing presentations and documents. SlideShare is growing rapidly (more than 18 million monthly uniques) letting everyone from marketers, conference speakers and academicians share presentations and connect with others. Rashmi has a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Brown University and did research on search engines and recommender systems at UC Berkeley. She is a frequent speaker at conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo and Future of Web Apps. She writes a blog at rashmisinha.com about running a startup.

The 13th annual LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) Forum, held in Boulder last week, brought some of the world’s most influential conscious commerce leaders, green businesses, and inspiring personalities together for three days, building connections and exchanging ideas for a brighter world and healthier planet.

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Over 500 people from all over the globe filled the St. Julian hotel, and representatives from about 260 businesses were in attendance. The air was filled with that electric feeling present at every gathering of like-minded people, and during breaks in the sessions, connections were made, business cards exchanged, and deals and joint ventures were being built.

For the LOHAS business owner, the Forum was filled with practical information, including sessions covering LOHAS Market Data, engaging multicultural markets, investing in human capital, and branding for sustainability. The LOHAS market worldwide is estimated at over $209 billion a year and growing, and includes businesses that focus on sustainable living, health and fitness, the environment, and social justice. This new-ish market is booming, and companies that attended the Forum were hungry to know more about bringing their message to the mainstream.

For the human side of businesses, speakers such as Hunter Lovins (CEO of Natural Capitalism), Wade Davis (National Geographic), John Marshall Roberts (author of Igniting Inspiration), and Andrew Cohen (EnlightenNext) inspired and energized their audiences to continue to be engaged in positive change.

The Forum wasn’t only comprised of small businesses and niche market representatives, either. Some large mainstream companies like Coca Cola, eBay, Facebook’s Causes.com, and Wal Mart were among the presenters, and for some, this crossover interest in LOHAS is a sign of things to come.

“As we find ourselves at a critical crossroads within the business community, LOHAS is in the perfect position to help expand the ‘green’ marketplace by facilitating new relationships across industries.” - Ted Ning, LOHAS Forum Director

With sessions like “Lessons from a Radical Industrialist” by Interface Chairman Ray Anderson, and “Fortune 500 Companies Going LOHAS”, with representatives from Coca Cola and Wal Mart, the Forum helped to highlight the bridges to sustainability being built by big business.

If your eco-business needs a boost and you’d like to build your network and be informed about the opportunities and lessons of others, you don’t want to miss the LOHAS Forum next year!

Image:epSos.de at Flickr under CC License

OPEN (Organization for Pakistani Entrepreneurs) Silicon Valley is holding their Forum ‘09 this Saturday, June 13th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. This year, the forum will include a Cleantech track that will bring business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and policy makers together to discuss different perspectives of clean and sustainable technologies for the future. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want a new and interesting perspective on the subject, head out to Mountain View this Saturday.

Tickets are $55 in advance and $95 on-site, but OPEN was kind enough to offer Green Options readers a bargain discounted price of $40. The discounted tickets can only be purchased through this link: http://tinyurl.com/OPENforum-DISCOUNT.

Here is a brief overview of the Cleantech panel sessions:
Session I: Where’s the Green in Clean? Investment Opportunities, Valuations and the Funding Gap in Cleantech.
Session II: Innovations in Energy: Viable business propositions after Market Corrections.
Session III: The Stimulus Act: The Impact of Government Policy on Cleantech Start-ups and Investors.
Session IV: Workshop: Crafting your personal brand to transition into the Cleantech sector.

For more information on OPEN Silicon Valley Forum ‘09 Cleantech sessions, click here.
For a full schedule of events click here.

You hear so much about people striving to live a greener, more sustainable life. You may at times wonder, who else is doing it, and is all that happy talk translating into real world results?

Three friends decided to find out. As they put it,

Mandy, Ryan and Brady are ‘bikepacking’ 12,000 miles to the East Coast and back to California, using solar-powered electronics and leg-powered bicycles.  The result is a feature-length documentary film that will present a realistic experience of seeking out and living in sustainable community.

Started October 2008 and 3800 miles into it as of this writing (with 209 PB&J’s consumed if you must know) they have been filming and Twittering their way across to country, giving a peek into what it looks, feels, and works like to live in sustainable, intentional community, the end result being a film called Within Reach.

It’s clear that these people are 21st century environmentalists - they don’t shun businesses supporting their venture, and in fact proudly list their sponsors on the front page, all of which bear relevance with what they’re doing. This project is Creative Commons licensed, and they are a non profit, allowing for people to support their journey and the making of it into a film afterwords.

So what have they found?

Read the rest of this entry »

There are tons of green conferences these days, and to be sure lots of great information to be learned at them, people to connect with, ideas to germinate, funding to be sought. And yet, something’s missing.

Don’t get me wrong, magic has been made and minds blown with just Powerpoint and a good presentation. I don’t know about you, but how many times do you find yourself thinking, “I have something to add to what they’re saying,” or “Gah! I wish they’d do a session on *this* topic!”

Green Business Camp, done for the first time a few weeks back in South San Francisco at the Green V Sustainable Center, a creative reinvention of a former car dealership site, may be just the antidote you’re seeking. It’s what they call an “unconference.” As in the opposite of all the trappings of your usual conference.

We are ecstatic about sponsoring 3rd Whale’s Greenest Person on the Planet contest for 2009 .  Entry consists of submitting your carbon foot print information and also describing why you are the greenest person on the planet.  The contest launches on Earth Day (April 22nd).  Deadline to submit is May 22nd.

Those entries get narrowed down to 10 candidates in each region.  Those candidates are then asked to submit videos about their green lifestyle.  3rd Whale’s audience votes on the semi-finals.  From there, a second round of votes determines the Greenest Person on the Planet.

You may have already heard of 3rd Whale if you have an iPhone.  3rd Whale’s mobile application for the Apple iPhone lets you power up your green lifestyle. With a shake of the phone you can find the nearest vegetarian restaurant, fair trade store, yoga center or bicycle shop.  It is like the magic 8 ball but for greening up your lifestyle.

Follow mokugift on twitter: www.twitter.com/mokugift
Follow 3rd Whale on twitter: http://twitter.com/3rdWhale

Planning a business trip on a tight carbon budget? Need an Earth Day gift for your employees?

Well, then you might be interested in a unique Earth Day marketing opportunity offered by  nextstop.com, a new travel community where users provide short recommendations of places they like, and can create guides with a theme. Nextstop has put together a contest called “Traveling Green”, and it’s open for entries until April 21 (the day before Earth Day).

The process is pretty simple and fun. Basically, it calls for creative minds to put together a guide with your favorite “green” travel destinations. The prize is a $50 VISA Gift Card for Earth Day.

Now can you possibly pass up the offer to get your creative juices flowing and line yourself up for an eco-friendly reward all at the same time?

Check out the contest rules at: http://bit.ly/3nuSix

EcoTuesday, the sustainable business leaders networking forum, is celebrating it’s two-year anniversary this Tuesday, Feb. 24^th at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. The featured speaker is Dave Rochlin, CEO of Climate Path and former COO of TransFair USA. Climate Path is applying transparency principles to carbon markets.

From it’s start in San Francisco in 2007, EcoTuesday has grown to a multi-city network of convenings, now including Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Washington DC.

Growth formula:

Unique format + thought leaders + passion

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Jill, you are an artist, designer and crafter. Tell us about what you do and what you create.

First and foremost I create detailed native nature drawings. With these, I create an eponymous line of paper goods and fabric accessories. I’ve been an “indie-craftpreneur” since 2001, selling my goods on my retail website and in boutiques worldwide. I also create murals, take on custom art commissions, and the occasional graphic design project for like-minded businesses. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just returned to Southern California from The Shorty Awards, held Wednesday night in New York to honor “The best producers of short content in 2008”, in other words, the best of Twitter. A combination of lost luggage, including my computer power cord, (I know, I know) and a nasty cold has both delayed my writing this post and given me some time to collect my thoughts.

My expectations attending this, the first annual awards show were low, but I was surprised how professional and well attended the awards turned out to be. Though, my account @greenmoms was the winner in the #green category, we weren’t the only green company at the awards. @pawluxury, an entrepreneurial, organic dog food and accessories company won in the #business category. I wrote about how they successfully use social media at A Green Social Media Story – Paw Luxury.

I first started using Twitter, as @mcmilker, in 2007, slowly at first and then, as I discovered the power of this short messaging service, with more frequency. I’ve added feeds from blogs for which I write and wrote about the Top 10 in Green You Should follow on Twitter. This list, of course tends to be a bit fluid, so I suppose I’ll be writing about it again. Read the rest of this entry »