Aspiring Women Leaders attracts press interest
Informatics Ventures workshop on New Approaches to Leadership for Aspiring Women Entrepreneurs, Managers & CEOs gets prior coverage in the Sunday Times, Scotland on Sunday and Sunday Herald newspapers.
Sunday Times article.
Sunday Herald article (story not yet online).
Scotland on Sunday 'BRIEFS' mention.
A PDF of printed versions can be downloaded here.
The 2008 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor backs up some of the strong claims made in these articles.
Andrew Mitchell from Informatics Ventures said:
"Finding female entrepreneur and female academic entrepreneur role models for our budding early-stage-entrepreneurs in Scotland is a difficult task; and this was reflected at a recent investor showcase organised by Informatics Ventures in Edinburgh, attended by VC's and Angel Investors from all over the UK. Out of the 40 new ventures pitching and demonstrating to investors, only 4 were under the leadership of females. The UK does not have enough science and technology based entrepreneurs, and there are not enough scientists being trained either which perpetuates the science entrepreneur shortage and based on our crude sample at the investor showcase this problem is 10X worse from a gender point of view. To make a hard challenge even harder, Informatics Ventures is focused on software entrepreneurship, not a sector with a reputation of female dominance! And we are not sure how the future will unfold either. The speaker line up at a recent conference on "Tomorrow's Web" which showcased the best of Britain's young entrepreneurial talent in the webspace was woefully male dominated. Out of 16 future web leaders only ONE was female.
The roots of this problem are complex and multifaceted and if we are to address this we need to change society and our culture as parents, as teachers, as educators of all ages and as employers. We have come a long way since the Surgeons' Hall Riots of 1870 at a time when an enlightened University of Edinburgh led the way in the UK and the world by allowing women to study and (eventually) be awarded degrees, an aspect that Science powerhouses at Oxbridge only addressed some time into the 20th Century. However, when it comes to Women in Science and Entrepreneurial Local Heroines we still have a mountain to climb. We hope the Informatics Ventures workshop on New Approaches to Leadership for Aspiring Women Entrepreneurs, Managers & CEOs will contribute to this agenda positively and ultimately to the economic benefit of Scotland."
