Female Entrepreneurs and Digital Business.

By SME Europe

On 2nd of June SME Europe of the EPP welcomed a high level group of female experts to discuss the topic of Female Entrepreneurs and Digital Business. Dr. Horst Heitz, Executive Director of SME Europe warmly welcomed the panelists by emphasizing the importance of the topic. He outlined that while women tend take less risks as well as starting businesses in areas of their expertise, they also have higher rates of success. However, as a consequence there lies a huge potential within Digital Business for females.

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FEM President Adelheid Moretti thanked Dr. Heitz for his kind words and underlined the importance. As the main representative for FEM, with more than 500.000 SMEs, President Moretti pointed out that events as such these are crucial to generate awareness and promote female entrepreneurship.

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Before the panel kicked off, Anna Danti, Policy Officer responsible for Women and Entrepreneurship, presented the European Commission’s efforts undertaken in this field. She identified the digital sector as an opportunity for the empowerment of women. In agreement with Dr. Heitz, Ms. Danit outlined that women where more reluctant to take innovative risks, however achieving higher rates of entrepreneurial success than their male counterparts. Nevertheless, the digital sector attracts 10% more female entrepreneurs than any other sector. Therefore, the Commission is eager to attract more business angels to further boost the developments in the digital sector. Through these and other tools the European Union has the unique chance to get ahead of their major competitors, USA, China and India.

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The panel opened with a brief introduction round from each of the participants, comprised of: Cheryl Miller, CEO of Zen Digital Europe, Founder of Digital Leadership Institute, Verena Martelanz, Deputy Head of the EU Representation, Austrian Chamber of Commerce Brussels, Caroline Meyers, European Network to promote Women´s Entrepreneurship Belgium, Lilia Heitz General Director European Entrepreneur

The main questions tackled during the debate centered around:
• How can female entrepreneurship be promoted?
• How can women gain better access to become entrepreneurs in the digital sector?
• In what way can the digital branch enhance the possibilities of female entrepreneurs?
• What role does education play in this context?
• What are potential causes and reasons for inequalities in the digital sector? Are there any?
• What can each single one do to help promote female entrepreneurs in digital business?

Following a fruitful and intense discussion the key aspects by each participant outlined the importance of the topic.
Caroline Meyers stated that the topic tackled a vastly interesting but also challenging area within the spectrum of female entrepreneurship. She mentioned that digital business is just one area in which efforts to encourage women to confidently approach a male dominated profession remain a substantial obstacle to surmount.

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Verena Martelanz presented her perspective by picking up the example of similar Austrian initiatives which are leading the way in encouraging women into “unclassical” industry sectors such as engineering and indeed ICT. This, she affirmed was the first small step on the way to both equality in the work place and overall

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Cheryl Miller strongly advocated to close the gender gap in the digital sector. Within her professional capacities she therefore organizes workshops to stimulate interest for young girls in order to give them an early introduction the field. Moreover, the connection between academics and profession is a crucial element to be established in order to transfer the skills into entrepreneurial results as especially women feel a lack of competence in tech. Ms. Miler rounded off by stating that women should be encouraged to develop their own platforms to contribute to the debate on a practical level.

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Lilia Heitz offered somewhat of a variety to the conversation by insinuating that the existence of today´s gender gap is by no means comparable to the like found even twenty years ago, she went on to explain how she feels that women should be proud of this fact and should indeed push for further integration of women into nontraditional roles on the job market. As a means of achieving this, she suggested the use of successful women as mouthpieces. She however warned that she felt further segregation of sexes in training is dangerous and could indeed create further gender rifts in today´s society.

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The publication of this document received financial support from the European Parliament. Sole liability rests with the author. The European Parliament is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.