Sex Tech in Lisbon
The mammoth Web Summit can be an eye-opener for anyone attending for the first time. The conference offers a cornucopia of talks and advice from thought-leaders across the tech industry’s vast range of disciplines. Kicking off the event were CNN’s Laurie Segall on Center Stage with World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, Wired’s Lauren Goode interviewing renowned filmmaker Darren Aronofsky and Apple’s Lisa Jackson talking about her company’s deep commitment to the environment. (The U.N. Secretary-General followed Ms. Jackson.) And then there are the sold-out conference’s roughly 70,000 attendees, not including sponsors and exhibitors.
In addition to personally taking the Startup University stage with Dug Song, founder of Duo Security, the cloud-based multi-factor authorization company (for the enterprise) that just sold to Cisco for $2.35B, I get to do some startup mentoring, judging, as well as a couple of newsmaker interviews.
In the last category, I grabbed some video with the founder of a much buzzed-about (literally) company call Dame Products whose consumer-driven researched and designed products seek to close the “pleasure gap” between men and women when it comes to sexual satisfaction. The coming age of sex tech is a subject Cindy Gallop addressed nearly five years ago at the New York Tech Meetup.
Anyway, Alexandra Fine, a nice Jewish girl raised in the five towns (on L.I.) with a masters degree in clinical psychology, was determined to bridge this gap through technology. She just needed an engineer (“with a vulva”) who shared her vision, and could complement her drive and sense of design with mechanical engineering chops.
Out of the blue came Janet Lieberman with an M.E. degree from MIT. The two set up shop in Brooklyn, and judging from the rapt attention their latest product has thus far received, it’s clear the two have found the G spot.
Here’s my 15-minute talk with Ms. Fine, which I taped prior to her on-stage appearance on a panel titled “Can Sex Tech Bridge the Orgasm Gap.”
Again, forgive the audio. The Web Summit’s interview booths are adjacent to one another, so without a lavalier microphone, you’re subject to background noise.
