III Inspiring Women Leaders in the Digital Era
Why is it necessary to value female entrepreneurship?
Perhaps because only 7% of European and North American startups are led by women and it is important to highlight female empowerment in the business field.
Or maybe because from a very early age we have the glass ceiling on top and we don’t realize that, from the school and its surroundings, the STEM career study is not encouraged in girls.
And that was the objective of the third edition of Inspiring Women in the Digital Era: to gather more than 50 entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs from the digital world to tell their experience. The event, organized by UU Startup Community, took place at the Repsol Foundation.
A report by The Boston Consulting Group points out that women-founded businesses are more profitable than those that have a man as a manager. However, as there is a majority of male investors, female ideas go unnoticed.
Teresa Alarcos, president and founder of UU Startup Community highlighted different activities carried out to give visibility to women’s projects such as volunteering and international networking. Also in education, to reverse this trend, since only 10% of women choose a STEM career in college.
The session, which had six round tables, allowed us to know the projects of large corporations such as Repsol, Endesa or Strategic Alliances that are already implementing blockchain, IoT or nanotechnology. Eduvigis Ortiz spoke loud saying that “the data is the new oil, but we must apply the analytics.”
Rosa Sanz, COO in Naturgy and moderator of this panel, summed up in three points the involvement of companies using disruptive technology: “integration of innovation, value creation and transformation of the future”.
In addition, ethics and the impact of the creation of new technologies were discussed, especially in the health sector. Carmen González, president of the Merck Health Foundation, said that “health projects with the use of new technologies, such as big data or IOT, allow improving health and also preventing and detecting possible diseases and at the same time, taking care of the environment”.
The speakers talked about talent, the ability of people and the actions and decisions taken by a company to surround itself with the best employees. Arantxa Unda, CEO of Sigesa said that “to attract talent, you need transparency in the company.”
In conclusion, Víctor Meseguer, director of the International Chair of Social Responsibility of the UCAM, said that “the attitude of the entrepreneur must be curious and eager to change things. A lot of training and resilience to deal with situations that are on their way to success.
