The Future Founders Conference is a virtual event for women who aspire to become a startup founder and want to learn from inspiring, successful entrepreneurial women. Whether you are curious about launching your own startup or are in the early stages of building one, you’ll walk away with the knowledge to define your own path.
The one-day, virtual event will feature talks and panels with YC partners, our alumnae, and other founding women, followed by breakout rooms with experts. Speakers will share tactical advice and their honest account of what it’s like to find co-founders, leave corporate jobs, pitch investors, and scale their companies.
Attendance is free, but entry is not guaranteed. You are required to apply to attend. If you are approved to attend, you will receive a confirmation email within 2 weeks of applying.
Jess is an investor at Sequoia Capital. Prior to that, she was co-founder & CEO of fashion app, Polyvore (acquired by Yahoo in 2015) and a product manager for Google Maps. Jess is also a founding member of All Raise, a non-profit dedicated to improving diversity in the tech industry. Jess has a B.S. from Stanford in Computer Science and loves manga, drawing, bacon, and cosplay.
Erika Hairston is the co-founder and CEO of Edlyft, a paid support platform that helps college students and adult learners through CS courses, by pairing them with inclusive mentors, online group tutoring and personalized study tools. Prior to Edlyft, Erika interned as a Software Engineer at Facebook and then became a Product Manager at LinkedIn Learning.
Tracy Young co-founded PlanGrid, construction productivity software, in 2011 with Ralph Gootee, Antoine Hersen, Kenny Stone and Ryan Sutton-Gee. PlanGrid grew from 5 co-founders to 450 people, and helped build over 1m construction projects around the globe before it was acquired by Autodesk in 2018 for $875m. Prior to PlanGrid, Tracy helped build hospitals in the Bay Area.
Anu Hariharan is a Partner with the YC Continuity Fund. Previously, Anu was an investment partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where she worked actively with the management teams of portfolio companies including Airbnb, Instacart, Medium, OfferUp and Udacity. Prior to this, Anu was a Principal at BCG's Private Equity Practice and was a senior software engineer at Qualcomm.
Cadran Cowansage is the CEO & Founder of Elpha, an online community dedicated to accelerating the careers of women in the tech industry. Before founding Elpha, Cadran was a Lead Software Engineer at Y Combinator, and before that a Senior Software Engineer at MongoDB. She holds a Masters in Biomedical Informatics from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Biology from Colby College.
Rose Afriyie grew up in the Bronx, where she saw the importance of food stamps, earned a master’s in public policy at University of Michigan. She got into technology because she believes writing software is a superpower that people of color and women should have exposure to and mRelief's tech unlocks food benefits for families so they can spend less money on food and more money on realizing other economic opportunities. She is continuing the tradition of Johnnie Tillmon and other Welfare Warriors advocating for families to access food with dignity.
Kirsty Nathoo was previously an audit manager at PwC based in Cambridge UK, where she audited tech and biotech companies ranging from startups to public companies. She has an MEng in electrical and information sciences from Cambridge, and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Joan DeGennaro is currently the Community Manager of Y Combinator’s Startup School. Before working for YC, Joan held a number of positions at startup companies. She was a director at SHRI, a nonprofit organization building toilets in rural India that convert human waste into energy. Joan went on to work at another YC portfolio company, Deepgram, as their Head of Operations. Most recently, she worked at Oscar Health Insurance on the Network Partnerships team.
Nicole Cadman was previously a lawyer at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and Akin Gump, where she advised hundreds of companies. She has a BA in international affairs and Spanish literature from George Washington University and JD from Stanford. She is a member of the State Bar of California and the District of Columbia Bar.
This event is for women who are curious about starting a start-up or have just started one. It will be particularly useful for women with science, engineering or product management backgrounds, or with specific domain expertise that could turn into a startup.
Whether you are a student, or already in the workforce, this is the best way to learn what startups are really like: from women who've started them!
