Interview with Maxi and Stephan from Fempreneur Summit Berlin
We spoke to Maxi Knust and Stephan Baasch, founders of the Fempreneur Summit about women in tech and their vision behind the Fempreneur conference. Fempreneur Summit is a conference for female entrepreneurs taking place on the 9th of June in Berlin, Germany.
StartupBus is giving away 2 free tickets for the conference. Just like our post on Facebook & explain why you should attend this event. Details can be found at the end of the article.
As it stands right now, growth is limited due to the lack of skilled workforce and a huge lack of diversity. The more diverse our workforce, the greater the rate of innovation.
StartupBus is often the first experience into the revolution for many of our participants and it’s important for us to offer them a diverse surrounding. We are very proud to have gender diversity not only among our participants, but also amongst our Directors, and the bus organisers. We are always looking to get more people involved from different walks of life.
Maxi and Stephan — please introduce yourself briefly.
Maxi: I’m Maxi Knust, founder of the digital magazine Fempreneur since 2015 which is the first German magazine addressing female entrepreneurs, self-employed and startup interested women. With this I was able to combine my two major passions female empowerment and entrepreneurship.
Stephan: I’m Stephan Baasch, 28 years old, and was born and raised near Leipzig. Through my professional career I got involved heavily in the investment sector in 2013 and became angel investor in several bio tech, cloud service and AI companies in 2015.
How did you come up with the idea of organising a startup event for women?
Both of us independently organised a couple of events last year. For example, there were the Fempreneur meetups as well as business workshops with great speakers.
In 2015 Stephan organised the “Transatlantic Alliance”, an event around international finance, technology and entrepreneurship in which Maxi was part of a panel.
The two of us met at this event and due to our shared interests and passion for event organisation we decided to organise a larger event as part of the Berlin Web Week.
In the end, the Fempreneur Summit is the next step of the offline events Maxi already organised last year. Together with Stephan more ideas came up and developed which finally resulted in a larger event.
What can participants expect from the Fempreneur Summit?
Most importantly, we want to inspire self-employed women and those interested in startups through other female founders as role models.
Empowerment comes from inside is what we learnt from other inspirational people like Fempreneur Summit speaker Val Racheeva. That means that our mindset is very important and crucial for success both in life and in business.
At the Fempreneur Summit we talk about themes like crowdfunding, storytelling, passion business, mindset, digital marketing, food startups, accelerators & incubators, solopreneurship and so on.
With the diversity in our topics and keynotes we want to inspire our participants and give them ideas for their next business steps. Different industries, different business models and startup approaches inspire everyone to go their own way, true to our motto: “believe in yourself and do it your own way!”
Are only women allowed to join your conference?
The Fempreneur Summit is an event on different topics around founding, entrepreneurship and startups to attract mostly women that are already self-employed or interested in going the way of founding their own business. But ultimately everyone is welcome who is interested in our topics, no matter if man or woman.
Which events are planned?
During the day, there will be many interesting half-hour keynotes in comfy movie chairs at the cinema Babylon by our keynote speakers on the 9th of June. More details can be found in the programme.
Also, our partner P+P Pöllath + Partners will offer 15mins legal consulting slots in the law clinic during the Fempreneur Summit event.
In the evening there will be a “Fempreneur’s Night Out” networking event on the exclusive rooftop location of the Amano hotel in Mitte with a view of Berlin skyline. The party tickets are limited and available for only 10€.
Where & how can you get tickets?
Tickets for both the conference and the after-party can be bought on Eventbrite.
StartupBus gives away 2 free tickets for the Fempreneur Summit on the 9th of June in Berlin here. Just like our post on Facebook & explain why you should attend this event. The entry deadline is on the 31 of May 2016 11:59pm. We are going to announce the winners on our StartupBus Europe Facebook page on 1st of June 2016.
About StartupBus
Equal parts hackathon, road trip and global community, StartupBus is an annual competition designed to empower the tech community — challenging top tier talent to hop on a bus and conceive, build and launch a startup in 72 hours.
Created to develop and inspire creators of the next generation of technology companies through unique experiences and inspirational connections, StartupBus is a bootcamp that fast forwards lives and careers — changing how people see the world and their place in it.
Even though our competitions are legendary, the ultimate goal is to build the largest network of tested entrepreneurs on the planet, with unprecedented access to a diverse pool of talent, ideas and resources.
Want to be part of it? Apply now for StartupBus Europe 2016 at http://europe.startupbus.com.
