Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator Celebrates Milestone Three Year Anniversary at Event in Geneva with Launch of Digital Innovation Challenge for Women Startups in Partnership with International Telecommunication Union

Recognizing the intersecting relationship between innovation, technology, the digital space and gender inequality, the Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator (WEA) brought together senior representatives from its founding partnerships to mark its three-year anniversary with a timely discussion ahead of CSW67 on how to produce a measurable impact to create a more gender-inclusive innovation ecosystem and address the digital gender gap.

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For the first time since its inception, CSW67 has holistically examined the topic of innovation and technology from a gender perspective, by presenting a unique opportunity to explore the gender impacts of innovation and technology with recommendations that will set a course for a more inclusive and equitable digital economy.

With a mission to address the barriers faced by women entrepreneurs to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the WEA has been working to create a digital innovation ecosystem that empowers women entrepreneurs to ensure that countries reap the benefits of ongoing digital transformation and reach a more inclusive and sustainable world.

Organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, and bringing together five other WEA partnerships at the UN, the WEA anniversary event highlighted the need to invest in women entrepreneurs through digital aspects to grow their businesses. The event highlighted how the digital revolution offers enormous opportunities to advance women’s economic status by opening up access to knowledge and international markets and allowing women to engage with a wider network. The event also served to highlight the risks posed by the ongoing digital transformation in perpetuating existing patterns of gender inequality. Key takeaways from the event included:

• Existing innovation and startup ecosystems have a large lack of gender diversitybeing characterized by an unequal distribution of opportunities and financial resources.

• Women entrepreneurs are constantly confronted with a loss of capital and investments to scale your business,¹limited access to connectivity and information and communication technologies (ICTs), as well as opportunities to learn essential skills needed to compete in the digital economy.²

• Digital technologies, platforms and tools can also reinforce harmful gender stereotypes and discriminating once morest women and girls unless they are raised to be safe, inclusive and accessible from the start. For example, gender bias found in datasets and encoded in AI algorithm products can lead to systems and services that replicate discrimination patterns.

• Women and girls, and especially those who are most at risk of multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, are also the primary targets of online violence and abuse, which push them out of public participation, conversations and digital spaces more broadly. These are just some of the pressing challenges that call for gender-inclusive solutions in the digital age.

Did you know that:

• 37% of women in the world do not have access to the internet.³

• By 2050, 75% of jobs will be STEM-related.⁴

• Today, women occupy only 22% of positions working in artificial intelligence and only 1 in 3 international researchers are women.⁵

• Only 28% of engineering graduates and 40% of computer science graduates are women.⁶

• The exclusion of women from the digital world has wiped out $1 trillion of gross domestic product in low- and middle-income countries over the last decade.⁷

Launch of the WEA Digital Innovation Challenge

The event officially launched the ITU Digital Innovation Challenge with the support of Mary Kay Inc, as a key opportunity to advance this agenda. The global challenge selects the 10 best digital practices and digital solutions with the potential to create a more gender-inclusive ecosystem for startups and scaleups. Winners will gain access to the Digital Innovation Ecosystem Program, where they will receive capacity building training to help further refine their business plans, as well as expert guidance and access to a network of changemakers.

Extracts from the WEA Anniversary Event:

• Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Diretora da International Telecommunication Union, spoke of the proven economic impact in closing the digital gender gap, as he noted how, in 2020 alone, the potential revenues that were lost due to women’s lack of access to entrepreneurial opportunities was estimated at $126 billion. Bogdan-Martin called for more to be done to develop a gender-inclusive digital ecosystem by partnering with businesses, civil society organizations, policymakers, regulators and sister UN agencies.
• Deborah Gibbins, Director of Operations at Mary Kay, noted that while the pivot to digital provides a unique window of opportunity for women to innovate and grow their businesses, digital acceleration can also perpetuate inequalities. To this end, Gibbins called for inequalities to be addressed and an enabling environment created for women to participate fully in the digital economy.

The Digital Innovation Challenge is the latest WEA initiative. Throughout the event, WEA partnerships highlighted key areas of work they have developed in support of women’s entrepreneurship since initiating this transformative multi-stakeholder partnership.

• Developing Online Entrepreneurship Skills

O International Trade Centre (ITC) highlighted the first free online Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, developed in support of the WEA and launched in January 2022. digital curriculum in 27 modulescovers the 7 main stages of the entrepreneurial journey, being available in English, Spanish, French, and soon Arabic, Russian and Chinese. The curriculum is enriched with 200 videos and aims to teach aspiring and established entrepreneurs the skills to conceive and establish their businesses. Participants learn how to adopt a culture of entrepreneurship, develop business ideas and learn startup methodologies, prepare a business model, create a presentation, identify funding sources, find the right partners and mentors, and build a team.

• Advocacy for the Private Sector in Gender-Specific Procurement

UN Women recalled its work to promote gender-specific procurement, highlighting last year’s publication of an Advocacy Report, with the support of the UN Global Compact, entitled Strategic Value of Procurement. Why gender-specific purchases make business sense. The Report presents compelling evidence of the benefits of strengthening women’s participation in private sector supply chains in achieving inclusive economic growth and sustainable development.

• Addressing the barriers faced by female-owned and led startups

UN Women already Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region spoke regarding the first Women’s Entrepreneurship EXPO, a training camp held across the region in 2021 to enhance the capabilities of women entrepreneurs to attract investment. This culminated in an Investor Presentation Final in April 2022, where 25 female entrepreneurs from 9 countries (Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia, Moldova and Serbia) presented their early stage startups and business plans to address one of the biggest challenges women entrepreneurs face in growing their businesses: access to capital. Following their presentations, investors offered financial support, mentorship and networking opportunities to women entrepreneurs to help grow their businesses. In November 2022, the second Women’s Entrepreneurship EXPO, in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Yildiz Holding, brought together women entrepreneurs and business partners in order to mobilize and carry out specific actions to promote the scenario to the development of female entrepreneurship in the ECA region.

• Policy and Advocacy for Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Latin American Region

A International Labor Organization (ILO) presented her policy and advocacy work in support of the development of female entrepreneurship in Latin America. Throughout 2020-2021, the ILO conducted and disseminated a Women’s Entrepreneurship Development (WED) assessment of policy conditions affecting women’s entrepreneurship with a focus on the commerce and industry sectors in Mexico City in support of the WEA. The assessment included a series of 19 actionable recommendations to address existing institutional gaps for women entrepreneurs. In Brazil, the ILO worked with the National Service for Industrial Learning (SENAI) to advocate for the development of female entrepreneurship through a package of communication and awareness campaigns, training workshops and events.

A recording of the event is available here.

Sobre o Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator

The Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator (WEA) is a multi-stakeholder partnership on women’s entrepreneurship established during UNGA 74. It brings together six UN agencies, the International Labor Organization (ILO), the International Trade Center (ITC), the International Telecommunication Union ( ITU), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), UN Global Compact (UNGC), UN Women and Mary Kay Inc. to train 5 million women entrepreneurs by 2030.

The initiative’s ultimate aim is to maximize the impact of female entrepreneurship development in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by creating an enabling ecosystem for women entrepreneurs around the world. WEA exemplifies the transformative power of a multi-partnership of unique magnitude to harness the potential of women entrepreneurs. Learn more at we-accelerate. Follow us on: Twitter (We_Accelerator), Instagram (@we_accelerator), Facebook (@womensentrepreneurshipaccelerator), LinkedIn (@womensentrepreneurshipaccelerator)

¹ Research suggests that women entrepreneurs face funding shortfalls of $1.5 trillion. MSME Finance Gap, International Finance Corporation, 2017. SMEReportFINAL.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=m5SwAQA

² Of the estimated 2.9 billion people still offline, the majority are women and girls who are less likely to use a phone, access the Internet or have the skills to take advantage of digital technology.

³ UTI (2022). Facts and Figures 2022 – The digital gender divide (itu.int)

⁴A smart move (pwc.com.au)

⁵

⁶We need more women in science. What are three ways we can support them? (worldbank.org)

⁷ UN Women. Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. The snapshot of gender in 2022.

The original language text of this announcement is the official authorized version. Translations are provided as a convenience only and must refer to the original language text, which is the only version of the text that is legally binding.

View the original version on businesswire.com:

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Source: BUSINESS WIRE