Hello, everyone. I'm really pleased to have you here today for this session where we will be looking at uh the topic of gender diversity and inclusion in tech entrepreneurship. Thanks for joining the session.So we will be analyzing why it is important to support women, tech entrepreneurs in their strive to thrive. And also we will be looking at what challenges currently affect uh female uh tech entrepreneurs, which measures and actions can be undertaken to enable them to succeed.

But also how we can all take part because I believe that it's a responsibility of everyone of us. So um root causing the challenges we face as human entrepreneurs is really important because in order to be able to see what we can do to help, we need to understand why it's happening. So we'll be looking at those causes, we will be outlining some of the potential actions or solutions that can be implemented to fix that. But also we will conclude by discussing how we can enable women take to thrive. And I would love us to have an interactive session at the end directive discussion if you have some ideas or some uh opinions around the subjects, please uh to share with me. So why should we talk about this subject? Uh Let me ask you a few questions to start to understand why. So um first can you envision the future without technology a future without technology breakthrough solutions? No, I believe most of us wouldn't think that we would have a future without technology. Now, if we agree that technology solutions are the integral part of the future. How can we future without 50% of our population who are women taking part or being key players in that technology revolution?

No, right now, can you imagine being a spectator to the fact that there is huge gender diversity gap, not only in tech but also in tech entrepreneurship. We have very few women that uh technology solutions, new technology solutions. So there are gaps at different levels of tech entrepreneurship and we need to address that. But first tell you why I'm concerned by that subject. Let me tell you a little bit uh about my story. So my name is Niimi and I'm working as a software quality assurance engineer, working on voice technology. And um so I grew up in um a beautiful green and joyful country uh in a small uh country in the heart of Africa called a country of 1000 Hills, Rwanda. But I quickly came to realize uh that that joyful setting was masking a huge number of underlying social issues. By the time I was seven. I had seen an impoverished society which was struggling with the aftermath of a genocide war. I had witnessed a huge living under the poverty line because of different barriers uh such as an almost nonexisting transport infrastructure, a poor education system with no electricity uh systems that were not equipped enough to deal with numerous conditions. And that's just to name a few of the issues uh that I will see. So that ignited in me and a desire to get an advanced education and to explore opportunities that could help solve problems about exploring different fields.

And at that time, first mobile phones and internet started arriving in the country and it was the first time I was being introduced to technology. But then I realized how technology was helping to overcome infrastructure challenges with mobile phones allowing to communicate in this more easily to get help. I would go to sleep gray to learn how to use technology, to learn how to use internet. And I was amazed by the amount of information you could learn uh and get online from uh being in, you know, connecting and accessing information, something that would have been really hard in the past because uh we would have to go to libraries which were not there. So noting the potential of such communication technologies, I was determined to study something to science and technology. And with the ambition one day to be able to create technology solutions that could help solve needs of programs in our so society. So I graduated uh in telecommunications engineering.

But the interesting thing is that as soon as I went to the technology industry, I started observing that there were really few, few like women at different levels in the entry levels, but also in terms of uh le uh leadership levels. So I was concerned about that and I at some point developing a side business ID, right? I was like, I learned technology, I want to be able to apply. So I wanted to develop a web technology to help connect uh and develop a bridge the information gaps that we have in other soft markets. In Africa. I had all the passion and all the motivation to start building that idea. And I managed to get great support as an early stage uh founder uh joining accelerator programs. But I had underestimated how hard it is uh for uh how hard the entrepreneurship journey uh is after the program, the accelerator programs, I couldn't get my business idea from, you know, the idea to a concrete solution. I had failed. And I realized that I wasn't the only one that fail. There are many people who fail. But then I realized that actually many women fail as uh take entrepreneurs.

So it's not, you know, only me, but I realized that it was a a scaled issue that was affecting many women uh uh in the the sector. So here are some interesting facts. So did you know that less than 14 global tech start up businesses are funded by women that representation appears in across all continents only from, you know, 12% to 15% start ups that have at least a female found that is really uh concerning but looking at non funding roles as well, only 25% of the tech workforce are women globally.

High highlighting that we have a big gender diversity uh gap. But also did you know that from only um uh that another factor is around funding from only those 14% of start ups that are le led by women. Uh Only 9% of those global total funding that goes to tech uh start ups goes to those women uh tech founders, which is really concerning imagining that, you know, uh the big amount, almost more than 90% of the goes to only uh male dot uh male are actually all male start ups.

That's concerning and instead of women in tech and start by w women who take uh 50% of women reported that that is often due to a differential treatment that they get while raising funds specifically because of their gender. That's also a really concerning fact, but also another influencing element being that in the venture capital teams or investor still, we have very few women women represent only 5% of the investor, which is a very, very worrying fig figure, but also another interesting uh fact.

So this is around funding. Um But another interesting when we look at the start up, the tech start ups that go to the level of being tech unicorns, which are those start ups that manage to uh get a valuation of one up to $1 billion. Uh We, we have currently only 21% of those tech unicorns being led by women, which is really low. The report by Ocean Capital shows that women stay less time at, at the level of unicorns compared to the uh to the men. So those are really big issues and there are different um different uh causes that have been identified. One of them being the fact that they don't have um enough support, but I, I've tried to kind of cataract the main problem that we we have. So the first has to do with representation, we have a problem at the entry. Therefore, in getting more women to be tech founders or tech leaders from a program at the. So getting to attract more girls to a challenge at the work level, providing an environment for women to uh to, to strive in this environment, but also in an environment for them to develop as leaders. And the less we have our and role models of area, the more it is a program, right? And another that we have uh the second root cause has to do with uh the fact that those who take the lead lead to entrepreneurship don't get enough support.

And when talking about support, I'm not talking only about the funding support, but also I'm talking about other type of support such as you know, uh providing tools, programs or elements that allow women to strive so we can do still more at that level. And I believe that some of the available support is there but is not easily accessible or affordable for women entrepreneurs to succeed to succeed. The third root cause that I see as an ongoing support network geared towards women. Entrepreneur oftentimes the connections to the right investors or to the right enable enablers are not there to make to help these women strive. And moreover, the lack of representation and few success stories doesn't help over there uh as well. So what can we do? What else can we implement to help these uh women uh succeed? So um here are some ideas, of course they are not, you know, uh the ones, there are different ideas and different solutions that I can be implemented. But here, I'm outlining some of my views that things that uh we can do. So on the representation gap. We need to start addressing the tech ecosystem challenges for women in tech educating the key players in the industry. So that that differential treatment we were talking about does develop. We see a woman founder, we don't see them as a woman founder but a founder in the first place and that women are capable and they are able to succeed as the same way as men should be.

So basically developing and enabling ecosystem that allows these women to succeed. And that starts by addressing new misconceptions that are there stereotypes that are there that are hindering women progress in the tech sector. But also it goes around providing a platform for those who uh have succeeded to share what they learned as key lessons, what experiences they've gone through and how it can help other confirmed women tech leaders to succeed. So to be able to support the next uh generation. So this is one of the um recommendation and then another one is on the resources or the funding uh gap. One thing I believe that we can do is to engage all the tech ecosystem players such as investors, accelerators incubators, people who develop tools or techniques or programs for entrepreneurship to make a stand to make a commitment to dedicate, to dedicate of their resources, some of their funds to quote diverse funding teams.

Uh So that that be part of their portfolio to say that OK, as an investor, I dedicate to having 30% or 40% of my funding go to things that are diverse so that we can, you know, enable those who are there to suc but also we need to provide a needs access to key resources that help justify entrepreneurship because one of the key programs is that w some women don't take the lead because they are afraid how does it work?

You know, I don't have all the tools or I don't have all the elements to be able to, to start so demystifying and providing ways to learn. What are, what are the tools that are available? How can I get help? That will be really uh interesting. So that's the part of empowering and another um stream that I see that could help is to implement, that are trackable, that are measurable, that help fix the issues that you know, uh women entrepreneurs are facing because we do talk too much about these gaps in gender di gender diversity gap, you know, leadership in terms of uh entrepreneurship.

We don't talk too much about it. We do talk about but do we implement them how they succeeding? What needs to be done to make sure that we close these gaps sooner uh than, but also we need also to not provide a one support entrepreneurs, but to make it of a regular and, and growing uh support to follow up and to learn to, to follow up and see the method has succeeded or not.

So how can we do that? So there are different news as I was saying, and you know, I will leave that, leave it to us to explore what are the ways that we can use. But one thing that I do believe. So is that a collective effort is needed for us to be able to arrive there being women taken from the home women intake and uh and anyone so as a woman intake, you may be skilled in a given area. So I would encourage you to see where they can bring your expertise to founder, to a te and tech founder to help them succeed. You may be owning a company that provides a tool, a course training or a program for entrepreneurs. Can you facilitate access? Can you give scholarship for women like to be able to attend those or can you discount, provide discounts or facilitate access to those tools and how can facilitate key collections or enable connections between those two entrepreneurs and the people who can allow them uh to succeed?

And um I can tell you we've seen some amazing success stories. So I don't know if you know this woman, she's called Melanie Perkins and she's the founder of Canvas and she's done amazing, an amazing global brand that is impacting people developing a unicorn. And she started from nothing. She's young, but she's made, made it happen given the support that she's had. But so her conviction and her confidence to make things work. And this is a man that like also Chinna Bianchini who has been able to leverage network works to make sure that she can develop a tech business to a bigger level. And uh and one that I like is Rebecca and Chongo who is not only developing a business at a group in Africa, but beyond and beyond, but also is working on empowering the next generation of women leaders to be part of that. So it works. I want to ask you now, how will you support, will you be part of this journey? Uh Can you make a difference? How can you commit to make women succeed? So if you leave from there, key message is like, how will you take a stand to support women in tech entrepreneurs? Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Uh If anyone has any questions, uh yes, empowering is important. Thanks.

So I think it's really important that we empower um women uh take entrepreneurs any other ideas or questions or suggestion around this subject? Ok, I believe you don't have any. But anyway, we, we were arriving at the end of the session. Thanks so much for taking part and feel free to reach out if you have any suggestions. So if you see anything that we can implement as women tech entrepreneurs to together to make this succeed. Thank you. Bye.