Networking in California

Scott’s Ferry-raised Victoria Ransom, 32, now based in Silicon Valley, California, has won $450,000 in an international Internet business competition for her design application to be used on social networking site Facebook. Ransom’s company Wildfire Interactive beat more than 600 entries with an application to help businesses run interactive promotions, sweepstakes and coupon giveaways. Her design allows companies, such as Pepsi and Red Bull, to create branded promotions that can be used to reach Facebook’s 130 million members as well as other sites such as Bebo and MySpace. “One thing that is tough right now is funding, so this is a real boost for us,” said Ransom, who graduated from Harvard with an MBA and co-founded Access Travel, an adventure travel firm active in 16 countries. Her father, John Ransom, said his daughter’s upbringing in Scott’s Ferry, near Bulls, fuelled her entrepreneurial skills. “There’re only 45 dwellings there, so the big kids taught the little kids things at school,” he said. “She attributes a lot of her success to the tiny community.”