As part of their Female Internet Heroes series, and in conjunction with NCWIT (the National Center for Women & Information Technology), The NextWomen will be publishing audio interviews highlighting a diverse group of women innovators from small companies, larger corporations, and non-profits, whose ideas and products are changing the way we think, work, play, and communicate. Listen as these women discuss how they first became involved with tech, why they chose to be entrepreneurs and what advice they would give to young people interested in IT or entrepreneurship.

Emily Olson, Co-Founder of Foodzie

Listen to the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Interview with Emily Olson.

Emily is co-founder of Foodzie, an online marketplace for small passionate food producers and growers. She heads up marketing, community management, and overall social media strategy for Foodzie.  Part of her role is to bring a robust food community online and has done so through community tasting events and street team sampling promotions. She also keeps content flowing on the Foodzie blog, Twitter, Flickr and Foodzie Facebook Fan Page to help facilitate community growth. She's also an alum of the 2008 class of TechStars, an early stage tech incubator program based out of Boulder, CO.

Prior to Foodzie, Emily worked for The Fresh Market, the third largest specialty food chain in the US, as their Private Label Brand Manager. She saw the flaws in the bricks and mortar model for small food companies and believed that an online marketplace gave them the tools they needed to connect directly with customers and share the stories that make them unique.

NCWIT is the National Center for Women & Information Technology. They are a coalition of more than 170 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits working to increase women’s participation in information technology (IT). NCWIT was established in 2004 with startup funding from the National Science Foundation, Avaya, Microsoft, Pfizer, Bank of America, Intel, HP, the Kauffman Foundation, and Qualcomm.