The International Council for Small Business (ICSB) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) held an event in Paris on 3 and 4 November designed to investigate the existing barriers to entrepreneurship by women and explore opportunities for female entrepreneurs.
INSME’s Secretary General Giovanni Zazzerini participated in the seminar as a speaker underling how the deep tech ecosystem reflects the systematic disparity of opportunities and participation of women to economic growth. In both the EU and the OECD economies, data shows that the presence of women-led startups is significantly limited. Only 15% of deep tech startups are cofounded by women, and less than 10% of these are exclusively led by women. This means that the participation of women in economic growth itself is limited. Among the causes, the little presence of women in STEM academic courses seems to be a substantial one.
While there are very few regions in Europe with programs dedicated to encouraging entrepreneurship among women, promoting and supporting such programs would allow the amount of entrepreneurship in Europe to grow exponentially. As highlighted during the conference, if women were to be more integrated into business ecosystems, the European Union economies would benefit from an increase of 5.5 million entrepreneurs, while the OECD economies of 25 million. Furthermore, studies from Canada and the United Kingdom show that the inclusion of women in entrepreneurship would benefit these countries with an increase of GDP estimated between 6 and 12%.
The seminar gathered high-level policy makers, women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship support organizations to examine the opportunities to release untapped potential for innovation and growth-oriented entrepreneurship by women through public policies and private sector actions addressing barriers faced by women. The event was closed by a site visit to a women entrepreneurship support center.
Source: ICSB, OECD, INSME Secretariat
