Recently during one of our conversations about advocacy approaches to encourage women in to technical careers, another great woman in technology and one of my mentors, Robin Jeffries said “…sometimes you need to just pull up your knee socks and get on with it.” Alexis is one of those women in technology who is actually doing stuff. She is leading by example, showing us that yes, women can be CEOs of technology startups and that they make valuable business and technical contributions. And yes, women can apply to those elite technical start-up incubators that are sometimes portrayed as all boys club type operations and be accepted.

Providing new uses of computing technology is a highly creative process. I think we often forget that being creative and making new stuff with technology is not an act that is limited to people with a formal education in STEM. The artists and the liberal arts majors are often-times the innovators. I suspect that Alexis considers herself to be more of an artist than a technical innovator. I disagree.

Alexis is the sort of woman that I believe can inspire many other girls and women to start their own technology companies even if they don’t have a formal CS education – and yes you can contribute technically – you don’t need to just join marketing, sales or HR. And the best part of how Alexis inspires is that she does it by example.