10 Apps by Women
Spotlighting Inspiring Women Creators
While the tech industry remains massively male-dominated, extraordinary women are making their mark on STEM fields, resulting in a plethora of exciting new offerings on your device. As part of our Women’s History Month celebration, we’ve compiled a list of 10 apps designed by female-identifying founders. Scroll down to get inspired and support the work of these coding icons!
PepTalkHer
Founder: Meggie Palmer
This ambitious app is designed to close the gender pay gap, increase the number of women in executive positions, strengthen the talent pipeline, and achieve gender diversity in leadership. Founded by Meggie Palmer after her own experience of inequality at work, PepTalkHer provides career pep talks and strategy sessions to women who are striving for greater professional recognition and success. It also helps users track their career successes and coaches them in confidence and negotiation skills, so they get every dollar and every promotion they deserve!
Classpass
Founder: Payal Kadakia
Classpass, the world’s most flexible fitness membership, was created by dancer Payal Kadakia after she spent hours on her laptop searching for an open ballet class, struggling to make sense of different schedules, prices, packages, and levels. With Classpass, you can book an hour of fitness at a variety of top-rated local fitness studios each month. Whether you hit up a boxing class, unwind with yoga, or tackle hills of new heights in a spin session, ClassPass makes it easy to prioritize your health.
Shine
Founders: Marah Lidey & Naomi Hirabayashi
Shine is a self-care app designed to increase representation in and access to mental health care. The idea for the app was born when founders Marah Lidey and Naomi Hirabayashi, who are both women of color, didn't feel their experiences were often addressed in the world of wellness. Shine functions as a daily self-care check in, but what makes the app unique is how it incorporates current events, considering how headlines and crises might impact the mental health of its users. Shine also offers a collection of meditations in the app specific to Black well-being, including meditations on healing trauma and dealing with representation burnout.
Hey! VINA
Founder: Olivia June-Poole
Often referred to as the “Tinder for (girl) friends”, Hey! VINA is an app based on the premise that nothing makes us feel more confident, secure, happy, and free than a supportive group of friends. Frustrated by the difficulty she faced in finding like-minded women in the tech industry, founder Olivia June-Poole created Hey! VINA to provide women with the tools to connect, support, and empower each other. You can use Hey! VINA to find new platonic friends based on interest, occupation, and location — because friendships are an essential ingredient to living healthy lives!
SHEROES
Founder: Sairee Chahal
SHEROES is the world’s largest women-only social networking app, but it’s also much more than that. As part of its newest features, SHEROES provides micro-loans for female entrepreneurs at lower rates. This feature has made a particularly powerful impact in countries where women are barred from having credit scores or building credit. Women across the globe use SHEROES to talk about their hobbies, share recipes, access mental health support, and find expert advice on their professional, financial, and personal lives.
Gender Fair
Founder: Amy Cross
According to Gender Fair founder Amy Cross, companies may have an outsized role in shaping society — but people can shape company behavior. The Gender Fair app tracks companies’ commitment to gender equality so that consumers can make informed decisions about where they spend their money. By downloading the app, you can search and scan products while you shop in-store and access detailed information about a company’s gender fairness rating. Even better, the app gives you a voice, allowing you to communicate with companies and show them that their values impact your buying decisions, encouraging them to accelerate equality.
Bumble
Founder: Whitney Wolfe
Whitney Wolfe, who used to be a marketing VP for the dating app Tinder, designed Bumble to help the smart, wonderful women in her life shake free from the often restrictive and outdated gender dynamics of love and romance. Bumble began as a dating app that allows only those who identify as female to send the first message, giving women+ the control and helping mitigate the awkwardness (and creepiness) that can plague online dating. Now, Bumble has expanded to include two additional modes: Bumble BFF, which helps users meet new friends and build a supportive community, and Bumble Bizz, which is for professionals to connect and share expertise.
Wysa
Founder: Jo Aggarwal
Wysa, a mental health app powered by artificial intelligence, connects users with an anonymous, free, clinically assured AI mental wellness coach. Founder Jo Aggarwal designed Wysa to help compensate for the scarcity of therapists across the globe – even in countries with a relatively high therapist-to-population ratio, like the US, some therapists still have a year’s worth of patients on a waiting list. Aggarwal also emphasizes that the app is not a replacement for human therapy, but rather an additional tool for users who aren’t yet sure that they need therapy or don’t currently have access to a professional therapist. Wysa uses evidence-based cognitive-behavioral techniques (CBT), DBT, meditation, breathing, yoga, motivational interviewing and micro-actions to help you build mental resilience skills and, above all, feel better.
Euphoria
Founder: Robbi Katherine Anthony
Euphoria aims to empower and guide the transgender community through every facet of their lives. The app provides daily affirmation and support for trans individuals, tailored to meet the user no matter where they are on their journey of transition. Founder Robbi Katherine Anthony was inspired to create Euphoria by her own experiences as a trans woman; with this app, she hopes to offer a technological solution to the confusion, pain, and isolation often felt in the trans community. “Our charter,” says Robbi, “is just to help people cross this chasm that is transition.”
EXHALE
Founder: Katara McCarty
EXHALE is an emotional well-being app designed for Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color. Founder Katara McCarty, an entrepreneur dedicated to building brave spaces for BlWOC, seeks to provide a place of refuge and healing through the app. EXHALE features meditations, guided visualizations, breathwork, coaching talks, and daily affirmations to help users invest in themselves and cultivate lasting energy.
