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Female Entrepreneurshipin the Digital Age

Tracey French, Dr. Petra PüchnerECWT

Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum

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Promotion of women innovators and entrepreneurship

Women start companies As returners / after family breaks – not in their original study area In service sectors With low budgets Mainly to balance work and family life

Women would start more technology based companies if they would get the right support / encouragement

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Possible areas of intervention

• Universities / research5-15% high-tech companies are owned by women

< 10% of patents are held by women

• Incubators%-age of female start-ups far away from correlating to %-age of female graduates

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Possible areas of intervention

• Financing 20% of VC financed companies are owned by women

Financing grants /funds neglect the different enterprise culture and development of female entrepreneurs

Business Angels among women entrepreneurs rarely found

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Recommendations for change

• We need a change in awareness and perception on female entrepreneurship

Especially on stereotypical perceptions in society Politics and society need to back up entrepreneurial role of women with all consequences on male roles in household etc. Short pilot actions are not enough to achieve this cultural change Engage male ICT leaders in sponsorship

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Recommendations for change

• Set targets for EU Member states on female entrepreneurship including executive and advisory boards

Sweden, Spain, UK, France, …. Experience To enforce gender specific awareness in technology incubators, in public and private financing institutions etc

• Support Visibility EU-wide female ambassador network for entrepreneurship in ICT/high tech Involvement of female entrepreneurs in all industry related commissions, panels etc.

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Recommendations for change

• Support exchange of good practices at EU level among practitioners

• Ensure a variety of financing mechanisms • Gender - check for all support programmes and financing

mechanisms: do they match the needs of male and female entrepreneurs?

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4. Targets for MS for female entrepreneurship including executive and

advisory boards to enforce gender specific awareness, e.g. in incubators and public and private financing institutions

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Proposal 1: Promote female start-up support in university incubators by 2020

• Aims Raise awareness for entrepreneurship Increase the %-age number of women starting companies in the

ICT sector (relative to the number of graduates in ICT) Increase the level of public start-up funds given to female starters

(i.e. 10% higher than today‘s level)

• How Present / transfer recognised good practices (i.e. from US) Awareness debates with university incubators (roadshow like

www.FemStart.eu) on female start-up support Awareness / roadshows of ICT business opportunities, e.g. in

knowledge intensive services, green IT etc. in cooperation with University incubators and Alumni-Programmes

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Proposal 2: Network of ICT Women Entrepreneurs and Women Business Angels

• Aims Raise visibility of female entrepreneurs in ICT Showcase successful female-led ICT businesses Create awareness for Female Business Angels and their

activities and attract more women to these services

• How Set up network of Female Entrepreneurs (Target: 150) Present network (online, events, media etc.) to the public at

large Female Entrepreneurs are trained to become Business Angels

by working with business angel networks