Entrepreneurship serves as a catalyst for not only driving economic growth and sustainable development but also advancing gender equality. Women entrepreneurs can gain economic and financial independence, improve their well-being, and that of their families and communities through entrepreneurship. Additionally, entrepreneurship offers a valuable opportunity to advance gender equality within businesses by transforming policies, procedures, and practices through a gender-inclusive lens.
In the lead up to International Women’s Day (IWD) 2023, Youth Co:Lab, co-led by UNDP and Citi Foundation conducted a webinar on the topic of Advancing Gender Equality through Entrepreneurial Innovation and Technology.
The Springboard Plus webinar highlighted the transformative power of entrepreneurship in advancing gender equality through technology and innovation. Aligned with this year's IWD theme “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality” the session focused on educating and inspiring participants by showcasing the impact of gender-inclusive entrepreneurship, the enabling factors, and current challenges as shared by successful young entrepreneurs themselves.
At the session moderated by Youth Co:Lab alum Syed Ommer Amer, Founder of Daastan, Youth Co:Lab alumni Shreeya Giri, Founder of Happy Minds and Ziana Sakhia, Co-Founder of Bechlo.pk shared their personal experiences of barriers and enablers to entrepreneurship as young women entrepreneurs who are using technology and innovation to advance gender equality. Hester Spiegel-vdSteenhoven, Co-founder, Epic Angels also shared her insights on best practices and strategies to make entrepreneurship more gender-inclusive.
The session focused on raising awareness of the multiplier effects of women’s entrepreneurship and the vital contributions that young female entrepreneurs make to inclusive growth, sustainable development, and advancing gender equality and sharing best practices from Asia-Pacific entrepreneurs and ecosystem partners on strategies that utilizes technology and innovation to address gender equality. It also aimed to understand how Youth Co:Lab and partners work to support female entrepreneurs and to make entrepreneurship ecosystems more gender-inclusive.
Watch the full webinar :
Co-created in 2017 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Citi Foundation, Youth Co:Lab aims to establish a common agenda for countries in the Asia-Pacific region to empower and invest in youth so that they can accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through leadership, social innovation and entrepreneurship. Read more about Youth Co:Lab here.
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