“Empowering Female Entrepreneurship” is a two-day summit that brings together inspiring speakers from all Europe, female entrepreneurs, EU officials, investors and key stakeholders in business.
The summit was held on the 8-9 of March in Brussels, coinciding with International Women’s Day. Co-organised by the European Female Founders with the support of the European Commission, who initiated the network, the event brought together more than 60 participants. On behalf of the S3E team, our Community Manager, Carmen Serna, attended the event and had the opportunity to meet inspiring female founders.
Two days of inspiration
The speech of Commissioner Mariya Gabriel and the EU Gender Equality Champions Awards opened the summit. Gabriel handed the prizes to the winners of this pioneering initiative that celebrates the outstanding results achieved in implementing gender equality plans by academic and research organisations.
During the first day, participants listened to panels and exchanged knowledge and experiences on critical topics such as how to foster female entrepreneurship, build strong ecosystems and diverse communities and tackle the gender gap regarding access to funding.
Some takeaways from the session remind us that entrepreneurship is crucial to Europe’s economic growth. Yet women entrepreneurs continue to face different gendered challenges, from lack of funding to expectations that they will perform unpaid care duties at home. In this sense, by promoting women’s entrepreneurship, European societies could accelerate economic growth and women’s participation in the marketplace.
In the second day, participants witnessed powerful testimonies about the entrepreneurship journey. With a mix of Keynote Speeches and interactive and stimulating workshops, they learned practical information about where and how to get funding, mental resilience for entrepreneurs and diversity and inclusion.
The “Empowering Female Entrepreneurship” summit has created a rich forum for discussion, experience sharing, and alignment to understand better why female entrepreneurship in Europe is still lagging. It has also brought inspirational and educational content to empower female entrepreneurs. In this first edition, outstanding speakers have shared pinpoint female founders’ struggles and discussed the measures needed. Fundamental topics, such as funding, networking, building ecosystems, education, mental resilience, diversity and inclusion have been addressed over the two days.
Impact and Mission of European Female Founders
Female-led companies represent only 5% of all VC backed startups, with this percentage going downnto 2% if the team is all-women. For this reason, Commissioner Gabriel is asking European women to raise their voices. In May 2022, European Female Founders was created on her initiative. This network brings together European women entrepreneurs to propose concrete actions to enable equal opportunities for all founders. The network aims to inspire, encourage and act to support female entrepreneurship for an inclusive and diverse Europe.
S3E’s contribution to achieving gender equality
At S3E, we are committed to supporting women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship as part of our innovation programs. S3E focuses on the acceleration of deep tech projects, startups, and SMEs that, by providing solutions towards a more sustainable society and economy, can impact social development and economic growth in these countries and contribute to the timely achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in line with the EU Green Deal, the EU Digital Agenda and the Recovery Plan for Europe. Because of this mission, we are at the frontline of making female researchers and innovators thrive.
Learn how we are supporting women entrepreneurship through our three innovative programs (START, CHARGE and REVERSE) and check our current opportunities to join the SOUTHERN DEEP TECH REVOLUTION.
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