About
This four day online event took place over Zoom and Slack with networking sessions, panel discussions, interviews and mock pitch sessions. The Women in Entrepreneurship bootcamp was open to all members of current iGEM teams, iGEM Alumni and members of the public.
Panel discussions
- Female Entrepreneurship 101: providing a concise overview of how women might begin their entrepreneurial path by discussing with several female founders from various industries about how they got started
- Investing in Female-led Start-ups: discussing investment prospects as well as the challenges that female-led startups face in raising funds
- Building Self Confidence: tips and discussion around confidence, self-promotion, and navigating the internal and external challenges for female entrepreneurs
Workshops and interview topics
- Discover: idea generation. Get inspired by your surroundings, filter a project idea based on your personal interest and its benefits for the future society
- Decipher: setting up your enterprise, getting support and matching vision to the idea
- Develop: reflection, developing your idea further, enterprise management and working on your action plan
- The Journey of Female Founders and Leading the Era of WiSTEM
Pre-event
Watch the recording of our pre-event. We Need More Women Founders, featuring a panel discussion with Loretta Tioiela, Co-founder of Next Sequence, Alinta Furnell, Co-founder and COO of Synbiote, and Elizabeth Tapia, Co-founder and CEO of ArgenTAG.
Day 1: Female Entrepreneurship 101 & Investment in Female-Led Startups
Watch the recording of the first day of the event. Srishty Rathee, co-leader of the WiSTEM initiative, moderated the panel discussion, Female Entrepreneurship, featuring Shraddha Bhansali, Co-founder at EVO foods, Angela de Manzanos, CEO and Co-founder at FABio, and Alison Hirukawa, CEO and Founder at Drop Genie. We also hosted Investment in Female-led Startups, with Kiri Lenagh-Glue, Senior Investment Analyst at Matū Group, Dr. Dalal AlGhawas, Program Director at Big Idea Ventures, Joanne Fedeyko, CEO at Connection Silicon Valley, and Ozlem Tumer Eke, Investment Director at Arya Women.
Day 2: The Journey of Female Founders and Workshop Series
Watch the recording of the second day of the event. Here we explore The Journey of Female Founders with Inna Zaimenko, CEO at Deepli. Then, Emily Hicks, Co-founder and President at FredSENSE, and Windi Muziasar, CEO and Founder at Resistomap, ran the The Discover, Decipher and Develop Workshops.
Day 3: iGEM EPIC Breakout Session and Building Confidence as a Female Founder
Watch the recording of our the third day of the event. iGEM EPIC hosted a breakout session and hosted the Growth Measurement Workships. Sara Hegy, Coach at Sara Hegy Coaching, Priya Dharshana Ramani, Co-founder at Haemetrics, and Isabella Iglesias-Musachio CEO and Founder at Bosque Foods all spoke at the Building Confidence as a Female Founder panel discussion, hosted by Jina Bae, WiSTEM member.
Day 4: iGEM EPIC Programs and Growth Measurement Workshops
To wrap up we interviewed Nadine Bongaertz-Duportet, CIO of Gourmey and Board of Directors at Hello Tomorrow, about the Leading Era of WiSTEm and saw pitches from our participants. Specials awards go to the Metroverse team for pitching a HIV diagnostic kit and the AID team for solving the algal waste problem in India (winning the Best Creative Pitch award and the Best Innovative Idea award respectively).