Young women in innovative and high-growth entrepreneurship (Group C)

What is the issue ?

Innovation is an important driver of economic and social change as well as job creation. While young entrepreneurs are highly motive by and engaged in innovation, young women remain outnumbered in innovative and high-growth entrepreneurship. For example, only 15% of high-growth potential start-ups have at least one woman founder and less than 6% are solely founded by a woman entrepreneur. Young women entrepreneurs often face more and greater barriers to entrepreneurship due to their age and gender, including in accessing finance, networks and skills. For example, women entrepreneurs receive only about 13% of government start-up funding and less than 2% of total venture capital investment globally. This workshop will explore how public policy can support a more inclusive pipeline of women founders and how to encourage more girls in pursuing innovation and entrepreneurship.

About

This workshop is the second workshop in a series of six thematic workshops that will occur over the next three years as part of the YEPA initiative. The 3-hour online workshop will cover the theme of innovative and growth-oriented entrepreneurship by young people, notably among young women entrepreneurs. The workshop will feature a panel discussion with young entrepreneurs who will speak to their own experience in starting their entrepreneurship activities. It will also include case study presentations by YEPA participants on supporting young women entrepreneurs and how best to support innovative and high-growth potential young entrepreneurs through incubation and acceleration programmes. There will also be time to raise questions, debate key issues and share your knowledge and expertise, notably during an interactive breakout session. The workshops vary slightly across the different country groups as co-hosts have identified different priority areas and case studies for the workshops.