From Cattle to Computers, My Entrepreneurship Journey
Reflecting on my childhood in Texas, the dream of helping others has always been there — whether it was taking care of animals in my first job, spending two years in Bolivia with the United States Peace Corps, or helping start the UN Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign to end malaria — I couldn’t have picked a better path to be able to assist others in fulfilling their dreams. That path took me from Texas to California, where currently I am obsessed with helping entrepreneurs solve the world’s problems. Now, it’s a dream come true to welcome the President of the United States to my backyard in the Bay Area at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
Right now I’m serving my second stint as an entrepreneur-in-residence, currently with Dell, and formerly with the United Nations Foundation. As Dell’s EIR, I’m in a unique position to drive global advocacy efforts to raise entrepreneurship to the public policy agenda, and encourage policies and practices that support and enable entrepreneurial growth globally.
Entrepreneurs are the ones monetizing sustainable solutions to solve the world’s greatest challenges. Look at Scoop, a carpooling company, lowering emissions and taking cars off the road to curb climate change, or the Circular Board a virtual accelerator, bringing resources to women minorities to start their businesses. Entrepreneurs are tackling problems and turning them into opportunities.
The past year and a half I’ve spent with Dell has been a whirlwind of action and positive change. One of the first items we checked off our to-do list was helping pass the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8. We launched a global call to action — #EntrepreneursUNite — and asked entrepreneurs and business leaders around the world to sign to ensure entrepreneurship and job creation would be one of the world’s top priorities over the next 15 years.
We asked, you listened. There were more than 1.2 billion actions taken in support of UN Goal 8! Now that it’s passed, we’ve been moving into action — working with the United Nations Foundation and holding policy hackathons on how to truly create change.
One of my favorite programs I take part in is the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN). DWEN is a global network of phenomenal women entrepreneurs who have been there, done that and know what it takes to make it in an entrepreneurial ecosystem where only three percent of venture capital is invested in women-owned businesses.
Thanks to the DWEN network, I’m excited to share the news around our Dell’s High-Potential Women Entrepreneur Index, which we’re revealing in June at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in partnership with the White House. Dell engaged with Harvard TECH and IHS in developing global research to understand how high-potential women entrepreneurs can impact the ability of a city to be Future Ready. The results rank 25 cities around the world, and we’ll be using the findings to help city leaders, politicians and other stakeholders understand how their cities and countries could make the most effective investments or policy changes in order to be Future Ready.
When I took on the role of Dell’s entrepreneur-in-residence, my goal was to help entrepreneurs around the world. I feel like we are truly making a difference — through the passage of UN Goal 8, the connections made through DWEN and the research we’ve created — but know there’s still lots to be done, and many more initiatives on the horizon. I can’t wait to see what happens at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. Bring on the entrepreneurs, it is time to save the world!
