Tina Tower founder of Begin Bright, and HerBusiness correspondent, gave us a recap of Day Two of the South by Southwest Conference. The conference had a multitude of sessions to go to, and Tina shared just a little of what she learned from each session.
Tina started her day with a Globalisation of Finance session. She learned about fintech companies and robot advisors, two of the newest technologies taking over the globe. One of the most interesting technological advances she heard about was the robot advisors, which are able to give financial advice based on the customer’s history. The robots have access to all a person’s financial information and history, which would be extremely helpful for the people that lie to their financial advisors and pretend to be the financial person they hope to be. Also, once the robot’s plan is implemented, it can make adjustments based on what’s working and what isn’t.
Another session she found fascinating was a panel about fashion tech. Women do 70-80% of the buying for fashion companies, but men own most of the Fortune 500 fashion companies. Women also do a lot of the work for fashion magazines – writing and editing stories – while men are the ones that own the publishing companies and reap the monetary benefits. The panel also discussed venture capitalism, and Kay Koplovitz shared some insight into why women need to be more involved. One of the big issues facing women today is that very few women are venture capitalists, so women have little access to it. Women statistically better perform when they are invested in by other women.
Later she joined a session by her favourite podcast host, Tim Ferriss (author of The Four Hour Work Week), who interviewed Cheryl Strayed. She talked about the lessons she learned from losing her mother and shared a question that shapes her daily perspective: “If I die tomorrow, am I happy with the day I’m living today.”
This article was co-authored by Mary Klepzig. Mary is currently completing a journalism internship at HerBusiness. She is pursuing a Communication Studies degree at the University of Tennessee in the United States.
