Jeanette Symons Dies In Fatal Plane Crash - Profy.Com

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.profy.com/2008/02/06/symonsdies/

Jeannette Symons was more than just a technology dynamo. Mother of  
two, entrepreneur, gifted athlete, sister and daughter, Symons was an  
inspiration to women in technology everywhere. Symons was not the only  
victim of this fatal crash. Her young son Balan, 10 years old and  
already a promising athlete in his own right, was also killed. Symons  
was picking Balan up from ski camp in Maine, piloting her Cessna back  
to their home in Colorado. The plane hit an ice storm before leaving  
Maine, and crashed, killing both. Symons leaves behind her other  
child, a 7 year old daughter named Jennie, as well as her parents and  
two brothers.

Symons got her start in hardware, pioneering the tools that eventually  
became the industry standard for connecting personal PCs to the  
internet. She was the co-founder of Ascend Communications, Inc (the  
company that first allowed users to connect to more than one internet  
site at a time) and also of Zhone Technologies, Inc. (a  
telecommunications infrastructure company). Ascend made a name for  
Symons in the late nineties when it was bought out by Lucent  
Technologies.

Eventually she decided to leave the hardware side of technology and  
focus on social applications and Web 2.0 instead. She co-founded  
Industrious Kid, Inc with Tim Donovan. In 2006 they launched the kid- 
safe social web site Imbee. She conceived of Imbee while watching her  
kids enjoy the internet. She wanted to create a place that was safe  
for them to blog, surf and interact with their friends without fear of  
predators, and she succeeded.

By using credit card authentication and other tools, the site is able  
to verify the identity of the kids' guardian and that the guardian  
knows their child was online. After the no cost idenitity  
verification, the parent or guardian is also required to perform an  
additional verification for extra insurance. Kids aren't allowed to  
sign for the site without this parental process. Even after a kid  
signs up, the parent consistently has full access to the site to  
monitor how their child is using the internet.

The site draws in children by offering them a place to blog and  
socialize. It keeps them by making it fun. Kids can create their own  
trading cards and other fun things on the site that they can then  
share with their friends.

Symons and Donovan created a groundbreaking site that truly provides a  
safe place for kids to play online, but in the end Symons was more  
interested in living life for her own children than for others.  
Relocating her family to Steamboat, Colorado from San Francisco so  
they could participate in the sports she loved so much, she always put  
her kids first. A success in all of her endeavors, from athletics to  
technology and software and parenting, Symons' death leaves a void in  
the industry. She and her son will be missed.

From our source regarding the accident and its cause:

The cause of the plane crash is still under investigation by the  
National Transportation Safety Board. Weather conditions were reported  
as icy rain in Maine at the time of the crash. Symons and her son  
departed from the Augusta, Maine, State Airport on Friday night about  
5:45 p.m. in a Cessna Citation twin engine plane.

Within a few minutes, the pilot radioed air traffic controllers with a  
request for emergency assistance, when the plane was at about 3,000  
feet. But the plane crashed soon thereafter into woods 12 or 14 miles  
from the airport, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the  
Maine Department of Public Safety, which responded to the scene.  
McCausland said the pilot and passenger were dead upon impact and the  
plane erupted into flames.

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