Given that funding for these programs is in jeopardy in Congress, the effort is important for raising awareness about how vital they are to saving lives abroad and keeping Americans safe. Go learn about it.

V-Day, the international non-profit that works to end violence against women and girls, released its annual interactive program update today, and the news is nothing if not inspiring. Between projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, and work with community activists ranging from teen girls to adult men, you can’t leave the experience and not feel activated about the contributions (and your own).

This weekend The Association for Mindfulness in Education will host a workshop about mindfulness, teaching and education that sounds contemplative and fantastic. Starting with Mirabai Bush, co-creator of Google’s Search Inside Yourself course, and continuing onto the topics of classroom confidence, music, and the practice of being present, it would be a shame to miss. “A Guide for Anyone Who Teaches Anything” author Deborah Schoeberlein will start the Saturday session, which continues with a discussion of working with at-risk teen girls led by the Art of Yoga Project (an organization I work with and couldn’t be a bigger fan of).

Think the topics are of interest? You might also consider the Calming Technology Design Symposium that Stanford will host in early December (details to come and pre-registration here).

At the recent NewSchools Venture Fund Summit in the northern part of Silicon Valley, innovators and educators met to re-imagine what future learning technologies might be capable of. The gathering of 600 policy makers, instructors, entrepreneurs, and creators included now-notable philanthropist and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, who recently donated $100 million to Newark schools. (When asked why Zuckerberg did so, he said he’s thankful for the education he received and wants to help others have quality school experiences.) …While the Summit (#NSVSFSummit) continued with its goal of exploring the power of entrepreneurs to transform public education for underserved children, ideas for supercharging education also seemed to have benefits beyond the classroom. Any organization looking to grow sustainably in terms of financials and employee productivity could also benefit from the major ideas shared:

W2: You’ve just set up shop in San Francisco with 11 very active in-house startups. Why health?
HT: Working at Apple’s App Store and covering health and medical apps confirmed for me that the medical space could use some of the creativity found in other technology segments. I sat next to the woman covering games and realized how motivated the developers were by the chance to build products they love. I wanted to see those same talented developers working on ideas to improve health.

When I went back to graduate school, I started working to understand why the health tech ecosystem is different from other fields. We learned that hospitals wanted access to technology and tech leaders but didn’t have the infrastructure to vet the ideas and founders coming at them. We learned that investors were optimistic about the space. And we found that entrepreneurs new to health wanted access to both hospitals and investors. We decided to start Rock Health to bring these groups together.

The 11 local startups and 20 member startups (which get access to Rock Health resources, but don’t work full-time from the office) have access to the hospital partners for product feedback, trials and evaluations. The hospitals, including Mayo, love it because they get to work with a vetted and high-caliber group of startups. Our VC partners that are more tech focused, like Accel, see health as a vertical for technology to disrupt. And our life-science focused VC partners like Aberdare, see it as a way to expand their portfolio into IT. And in the process I’ve created the best job for myself as managing director.

Healthcare isn’t often seen as the most inviting. What excites you about it, and how did you convey that to get startups and prospective partners interested?
Healthcare can feel stuffy and formal, and we wanted to present ourselves in the Valley with a voice that’s more inspirational (hence taglines like “Do something useful”). Health has a longer feedback loop—especially if a founder needs to test for efficacy—which makes it different from getting instant feedback from friends about a game you’re building.

But this is a quickly moving space and we offer a learning and investment opportunity for entrepreneurs who want to get involved in healthcare. It’s exciting to see the collaboration between top healthcare systems and Silicon Valley technologists, who want to be in the thick of solving problems—that’s the next wave of innovation.

Interested health tech startups can apply for placement in the next Rock Health class this October. Halle is pictured with team Skimble.

Part motivator and part story showcase, the new ILearnedToProgram project has earned nearly 500,000 pageviews from developers, students and general Internet users in its first weeks of existence. By inviting people to share their experiences and finish the sentence “I learned to program…”, it’s capturing and sharing the work of featured programmers, a third of whom are women.

The decision to overrepresent females (who are still the vast minority of computer science students and professionals) was a deliberate one, says creator Benjamin Chun, a CS teacher in San Francisco. He wanted girls to feel that they have a place—and adult role models—in the field. The project ultimately highlights the diversity of the industry by providing a shareable space for people to reflect on their own introductions to coding.

Visitors see one-sentence tales about the initial allure of programming, which range from empowerment to self-education and escape. Chun’s response? “I learned to program by reading comments in an HTML file.”

First featured on Women2.org.