Hello Diversity! Podcast

This episode features Anna Franziska Michel, tech ambassador and founder of yoona.ai. She is known for being one of the prominent voices advocating technology in the fashion industry and connecting digitalization with sustainability and better work life balance. Anna was selected as one of the top female Business Influencers in Technology by Strive Magazine and she was awarded with the Digital Female Leader Award in the Innovation category. Her goal as founder of yoona.ai is to revolutionize the fashion industry. As one of the few startups, yoona.ai was among the 1% applicants in which Techstars Accelerator invested. Anna shares in this episode how they developed the innovation of the analytical tool yoona.ai that shortens the design process.

More about yoona.ai: https://www.yoona.ai/

Connect with Anna Franziska Michel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-franziska-michel/

This episode features Julia Kounlavong the founder of unwind your mind. Her mission is to equip every single person out there with the tools they need to find better stress coping mechanisms. Therefore she’s working on convincing everyone that stress can not be solved with one solution but needs several different ways. unwind your mind is an all-in-one solution to make it easy for companies to use that is not following the one-fits-all approach. In this podcast, the host Franziska speaks with Julia about no code solutions and how Julia built her own innovations. Moreover Julia shared how digital tools enhance the innovation process and how finding something you are passionate about enhances the usage of technical tools to create your new solution and solve the problem.

More about unwind your mind: https://www.unwindyourmind.de/

Connect with Julia Kounlavong: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliakounlavong/

Today’s Eventually Walk the Talk series features Franziska Pohlmann, entrepreneur, screenwriter, director, film producer and composer. The host Franziska Schmitt discusses with Franziska how createF, the Female Founders Show, unfolded and to what extent digital technologies are playing a role in this project. In his episode, we spoke about Franziska’s welcoming experience in the startup ecosystem as an entrepreneur with createF and how digital innovations for filmmakers enhance the production process. Moreover, Franziska shared how connections between people through digital tools became easier since the pandemic and her passion for supporting women entrepreneurs. Thank you Franziska for your valuable insights and the great discussion!

More about CreateF: https://www.createf.de/

Connect with Franziska Pohlmann: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franziska-pohlmann-b9974782/

“I am an Entrepreneur: clear it, take it, own it.” , so Prof. Dr. Maura McAdam at the first live Podcast at Einstein Digital; Future on Nov 24, 2022 in Berlin. Emilia Theye, founder clare&me shared “The biggest misperception to me is that it is an opportunity to be a female founder in yourself. I get that a lot from men.”

Two of many highlights from the first hello diversity! Live Podcast, where Pauline Weritz and Franziska Schmitt interviewed both guests in front of an audience. But what does it take that “women in tech” becomes the new normal?

The live podcast reflects that there is a need to bridge research and practice, and support each other:

(1) “If you have a door open then take someone with you, mentor others, share your network. this is how we can empower each other”, Emilia Theye, founder clare&me.

(2) “Higher education plays an important role. Researchers need to be innovative to examine the best approaches that capture the lived experience of women digital entrepreneurs. In fact, we need to up our research game and think about what is the best way on living in digital spaces and then we need to capture that.”, by Prof. Dr. Maura McAdam, Dublin City University. “You have permission today to be an entrepreneur, and take that job”, concludes Maura McAdam.

“We need more women on the investment side”, shares Emilia Theye.

Meet Prof. Dr. Maura McAdam: https://mauramcadam.com/

Meet Emilia Theye: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilia-theye-b0813b125/?originalSubdomain=de

More about clare&me: https://www.clareandme.com/

In today’s episode, Pauline talks to Dr. Aurelia Engelsberger, Co-Founder and CEO of the consulting company OMIND consulting and OMIND platform. The vision of OMIND is to create an open mindset for innovation and empower employees for knowledge exchange and collaboration. During her studies, Aurelia found her way into global hubs such as Hong Kong, New York, and Amsterdam. She ended up doing her Ph.D. in Open Innovation at RMIT University in Melbourne. In this episode, we talk about her passion for bridging the gap between theory and practice and why she decided to build her own companies. We also learn about her positive experiences in becoming an entrepreneur, her open (and innovative) network of knowledge sharing, and the support of other resources in Munich.

You can connect with Aurelia here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aurelia-engelsberger/

In today’s podcast, Franziska is interviewing Dr. Ritika Sinha, Doctor and Co-Founder Rocket Health, a health tech company for Indians. Ritika believes that as you have the need for an innovation, you built it. This motivation inspired her to built Rocket Health during the pandemic. Ritika’s innovations shows how the digital innovation Rocket Health is reolutionizing the health care system in India by destigmatizing mental and sexual health care. In fact, Ritika and her Co-founder are building seamingless technology so that users may seek help for their mental health and sexual health, for topics that are in general not openly spoken about in India. In this episode, Ritika highlights the essence of how digital technologies help support each other to grow further. In fact, Ritika shares that digital communities are very important to her, a place where participants can open up about their difficulties or asks. Moreover, Ritika shares what digital technologies helped her personally launch the product Rocket Health, and the MVP level really quickly, and what tools helped to test it out. To sum up this inspiring discussion, Ritika says that “maybe it's for tech. Maybe it's for just growth. Whatever it may be, you just don't have to stop growing and learning.” Her advice for all listeners is that nobody knows what they're doing until they actually do one step and start doing it. Along the way they learn. She thinks taking that first step is really important no matter what you're doing. Thank you so very much, Ritika for this exciting interview!

More about Ritika: https://www.linkedin.com/in/docritikasinha/

And Rocket Health: https://www.rockethealth.app/

In today’s episode, Pauline interviews Lauren Creedon, Head of Product @Goldcast, a purpose-built platform for B2B marketers before that tried her hand at starting companies. She geeks out about products that empower underserved communities, founders, and creators and is an advocate and mentor for women in tech. As Lauren is based in Boston, her insights give us new knowledge on the American environment and how things work in a city with a thriving startup system. In her future ventures, she aspires to help women gain access to capital while mentoring aspiring women product leaders. Tune in when we hear about her network at Harvard, her experiences with Clubhouse, and how women share stories about bootstrapping their own businesses.

You can connect with Lauren here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurencreedon/

Our guest Mareike Mgwelo, owner Kamvalethu Consulting, speaks in Episode 9 of the Eventually Walk the Talk Podcast with Franziska about her experience as a consultant in entrepreneurship development and innovation management. Mareike worked with female social entrepreneurs in South Africa, and supported UNESCO in Maseru, Lesotho, with entrepreneurship programs. She shares in this episode examples of how digital technologies enhance productivity. However, she emphasizes that the biggest challenge with digital technologies is that the variety of tools is increasing, and thus it is essential to share knowledge with each other, make a decision on what to use and test what works best. Moreover, Mareike highlights the power of digital platforms for entrepreneurs (e.g. Gründerplatform, Kickstarter, etc), that offer crowdfunding, connections to angel investors, co-founders or support with knowledge and idea development through a structured process towards a business model. To all founders: Mareike emphasizes that it is important to show yourself in the digital world out there, get the message out, show what you have done and what you intend to do in the future. In fact, an active and consistent LinkedIn profile led Mareike to new clients and also opened up new possibilities for her. Thank you so much, Mareike for your valuable insights and the great discussion!

Learn more about Mareike: https://www.kamvalethu-consulting.com/

Franziska interviews Indre Kaikare, founder and CEO of jobRely, about her entrepreneurial journey in this week's episode. What strikes most is that Indre has been using many digital technologies for work and her private life, and always wondered how she could make recruitment more efficient. This quest led her to build her own recruitment platform jobRely, a LinkedIn automation platform for outbound recruitment. A few highlights of the conversation are sharings on how digital technologies require patience, how digital innovations help to save time, and that diversity is the best thing to have when creating and developing a digital innovation. Indre shared how not being afraid and continuously showing up at mainly only-male meetups showed her that it's a matter of spending time and energy to understand the tech world, and that this field is not as different as we sometimes might expect. She believes that benefits are everywhere, and it depends on one’s perspective on how to look at them. Thank you, Indre!

Learn more about jobRely: https://jobrely.com/

Today’s episode features Mihri Minaz, tech co-founder of Beams, and Full Stack Software Engineer. In this Podcast, Franziska speaks with Mihiri how the digital technology from beams helps to overcome distractions, reduce context switching and master the art of mindful productivity. Beams is one example of a digital technology that helps users navigate their workday with more focus and less stress. Mhiri highlights how essential it is in her role as a tech co-founder and software engineer to include users' needs and build the tech product with a human centered approach. She describes how important an early shift to validate ideas is, through immediate user research. Mhiri recommends various digital technologies that help her while in the process of mindful coding and building the product.

Mhiri is from Turkey, moved to Berlin in 2015. She is 12+ years experienced with the domain expertise of mobile applications. In her last role before beams, she was Head of Mobile Engineering at a mobility company. She developed & shipped several apps used by millions of users for iOS/Hybrid platforms, on e-commerce, social networking, language learning, banking, e-wallet, mobility.

Thank you Mhiri for your wisdom and experience sharings!

More about beams: https://usebeams.com