my name is Babu and as I was introduced
I am an extremely passionate and as
you’ll soon find out very vocal advocate
for female entrepreneurship I truly
believe that finding the ways to invest
in women’s entrepreneurial potential as
manufacturers as employers as producers
as entrepreneurs is one of the surest
way than the most powerful an effective
way we have at rapid economic prosperity
and also social well-being for the many
for the 99% not just for the 1% this has
been my mission for my business for the
last five years
and it continues to be but in 2016 I
became increasingly disillusioned and
frustrated at the lack of progress I was
observing you see like many of us I was
sure when I founded my company in 2013
that you know the key to accelerating
women’s economic participation and to
unlocking all the what we call the
multiplied effects of investing in women
was enabling access to funding I believe
that funding was the solution after all
all the research I looked at or the data
point pointed out the fact that women
still just received 20% of all
institutional investments worldwide so
we started with crowdfunding we launched
a crowdfunding platform out of Oslo to
help women globally start grow lead
successful and sustainable businesses
and it made sense you see I believe that
crowdfunding and I still believe this
and I believe that then is also one of
the most powerful tools we have in
itself it’s revolutionary in that it
democratizes the flow of capital from a
small
and homogeneous group of people usually
white more older mature men and opened
it up to all of us providing us everyone
with the opportunity to invest in Fund
women layer businesses so it was a
no-brainer but I think in retrospect we
were wrong I was wrong and I’ll tell you
why despite the mounting evidence to
suggest that women investing women makes
for smart economics business sense had a
higher return on investment and this has
been proven from the yuan’s the World
Economic Forum to the World Bank despite
the increase in number of women
investors and angel investors despite
the amount of venture capitalists now
focusing on gender lens investing
globally despite all of that we are
still failing to invest in women
let’s take Europe for example while the
number of venture capital raised by
female founded companies in Europe has
more than tripled from 2012 to 2016
reaching an all-time high a six-year
high at a mere 14 1% in 2016 when
compared with the total of venture
capital that went to all women
entrepreneur you European companies the
share of investment going to women
founders actually decreased it dropped
in 2008 jobs in 2017 to 11.3% totaling
around less than 2 billion euros so what
if the lack of funding isn’t the problem
we should be trying to solve what if
funding isn’t the solution after all
what if maybe what we’re trying to
or for the lack of access to fund and
simply a symptom of a greater larger
more conscious problem at play one that
we need to overcome to be able to invest
women in equal measure
one that doesn’t get fixed with just
money and by the way the fact that most
of us think that money is the only
currency worth investing in when we’re
talking about contributing to women’s
economic empowerment says more about us
or society than it does about those
women so what if funding isn’t the first
step what if it’s finding because I
believe that to be where you cannot see
you first need to find and seek example
of who you want to be we need to find
examples of normal women and spy women
pioneering women they’re both men and
women young and old boys and girls can
aspire to as well and maybe just maybe
the key to finding is believing because
our actions or their I say our lack of
actions demonstrate that we simply do
not believe we do not believe that women
can start grow scale lead sustain one
successful businesses let alone exit
from them we do not believe that women
can build multi-million dollar
businesses let alone unicorns and by the
way unicorns is the term used by Silicon
Valley to talk about billion-dollar
companies and we still not we still do
not believe that women can have kids and
still be successful at a career and why
would we when in addition to failing to
invest in these companies
we’re also failing to recognize women’s
contribution economic contribution to
recognize their talents their smarts and
business their potential why would we
when we are in
when women are visibly absent from
mainstream media I know we live in a
time where we can claim alternative
facts but I’d like you to indulge me for
a second and let’s say the fact that I’m
about to show you our real according to
the global media monitor project which
was conducted in 2015 with amongst
others the UN only 5% of news noise on
the topic of the economy had a woman at
the central focus and stories between
2010 and 2015 women made up only 24% of
people featured in the media across all
channels and that figure sadly and
unsurprisingly remained stagnant during
that time it remained the same for five
years and online women aren’t faring any
better people like to bet on winning
horses no one likes to bet on a losing
one our task is to broaden our mindset
so that we so that our vision of a
because let’s not be mistaken there are
200 million women led businesses out
there or as I like to see it there’s 200
million opportunities to inspire so
let’s not convince ourselves that
finding inspiration and war models in
this pool of choice is an impossible
task you see it’s no longer good enough
to just state we cannot be what we
cannot see the quote in itself is widely
used to reference the lack of
representation and women across all
sectors politics finance
of research entrepreneurship you name it
although in its intention to inspire it
still fails to inspire action it may
serve us merely smart commentators and
passive observers of the problem instead
of making us participants active
participants and seekers of a solution
it gives it a kind of mayor Koopa a kind
of way out you know oh I did become an
entrepreneur because well I just don’t
see whether you’re an investor
journalist or conference organizer or
even a female entrepreneur it is no
longer good enough to say we don’t
invest in women because we can’t find
it’s no longer good enough to just say
we don’t write about women because we
cannot find it’s no longer good enough
to say we didn’t invite a woman to speak
because we just can’t find and it’s no
longer good enough for us as women to
not show up because we do not see and
it’s no longer good enough to find
excuses and yet fail to find examples it
is simply no longer good enough that we
can recognize these figures purely by
looking at their faces we know their
names we know their companies and pretty
much more than we would like to know
about them
and yet we fail to recognize women like
these by their face by their name by
their company her name by the way
is Sara Blakely and she is the founder
and CEO of Spanx and the only
billionaire who has joined women
billionaire who has joined The Giving
Pledge an initiative by Bill Gates
himself and Warren Buffett they advise
billionaires to basically give away
their wealth to philanthropy yet so many
of us are still
familiar with Sarah’s achievements you
see the key to investing in women’s
economic and entrepreneurial potential
is believing and the key to believing is
seeing and the key to seeing is finding
not funding I hope you still with me I
also think part of the problem is that
we put so much more value and emphasis
in the things that we own our material
possessions instead of the human capital
and potential we have right in front of
us which are women we spend on average 5
minutes of every day looking for lost
items whether our keys our bags or
purses our cars our phones at a personal
cost of 2.7 billion dollars and that
cost of the cost that we pay for
replacing these items that we lost and
what is sadly the truth is that figure
of 2.7 billion it is more than the
equivalent of money we gave the female
led companies in Europe
remember this graft we recognize the
importance of things in our lives we
even have really good words for them we
call them valuables that’s why when we
lose them we say things like hey have
you seen my keys and what do we do next
what do we intuitively do next we take
the time to go and find them to search
for them to look for our valuables yet
we fail to do the same when we say
things like hey I can’t be what I cannot
see in addition each day we spend an
increasingly a hell of a lot of time
online we make around 3 billion searches
on
all day that is one point to treat him
such as a year and much of this is
searching for information browsing the
web surfing the web or as I like to say
wasting our time and this obsession with
being online has led us an increasing
fear what we call FOMO the fear of
missing out but I think instead what we
should really be fearing is the fear of
folow the fear of losing out because it
often seems that it’s only when we lose
something it’s only loss that we are
moved to action we are moved to finding
solution think about the time you lost a
job a friend your home your freedom did
you wait and take stock maybe instead of
talking about they’re losing facts of
investing in women ie women still don’t
have women still don’t own as a way to
engage all of us and move us all into
action to act to find to invest we need
to place the emphasis on our collective
loss what are the lost opportunities in
investing in women economic potential
I’ll tell you what the losses are we
lose out on adding 12 trillion to our
global economies and in doing so lifting
so many out of many out of us out of
poverty we lose out on sending 15
million girls to school giving them eco
chance at education we lose out on the
opportunity to curve hunger worldwide by
providing food to seven hundred and
ninety-three million people a hundred
and fifty five million of which in 2016
were kids under the age of five
from extreme and repetitive malnutrition
we lose out on the opportunity to give
and save the lives of 4.2 million
infants who otherwise would die in the
first year of life because of poor
access to health and maternal care
should I go on I what cost is the price
of our inaction too much maybe when we
fully appreciate the value of what of
which we are losing by knowing to act
when we fully take ownership or women’s
economic empowerment as our own loss we
will finally be inspired to action to
recognize the incredible and valuable
contribution that 200 million women make
every day for their businesses to our
families to our communities to our
economies to the planet so in 2016 I was
disillusioned I was frustrated and I was
pissed off but I was tired of finding
excuses for myself so I was moved to
action that’s why in 2016 we launched
globally spotted a discovery platform
with a mission to raise more visibility
for inspiring companies started and
founded by women worldwide those with
innovative smart purpose driven business
models because who are we ultimately if
we do not leverage and showcase the
intellectual capital and property of
half of the world’s population so we
searched for female entrepreneurs who
are providing solutions to some of the
world’s most pressing challenges of our
time working towards sustainable future
working towards sustainable goals
or simply those who are trying to
provide for their families
we found what we believed we found not
just one not just two we found hundreds
within just one month
what failed us as a company is that we
are still a small team and we do not
have the resources to highlight to write
about all the companies that we find as
fast as we would like to we find women
like Jennifer who I found by the way at
one o’clock in the morning one day
searching as I do on female founder
pages on Facebook she’s working on
something I believe is truly
transformative she’s developed a scanner
that can scan any job ad for gender bias
in the words they could show you what
words are more masculine and what words
are more feminine they can tell you what
how much of a mass how masculine a job
ad is and then it neutralizes those
words to increase the chance of more
women and men applied to these jobs in
equal measure we’re constantly talking
about how do we get more women and work
this is one of the solutions how also
chloe chloe the company started by
sandra in france she’s trying to develop
food bioluminescence which is basically
the production and emission of light by
natural organism from animals from the
sea to be able to find and she has been
able to find as a stable source of
Lesa Lesa works on predicting weather in
the tropics where 80% of the people who
lived our farmers and by doing so she’s
able to help them pre hunt and increase
their yield in production and also their
profits and then finally there is
Vanessa Vanessa started a fire T which
is actually made of a plan called
moranga in Cameroon which has boost
amazing properties of seventy six
percent higher nutrients 50% higher
antioxidants and she discovered this
plant as a solution to publishers
finding a family her mother died of
diabetes and Mercer family are affected
by diabetes and the properties within
morality and the LEAs actually reduce
the effects of diabetes and finally I
would like to leave you all with this
last fort we may sometimes fail first be
slow to act we sometimes be
disillusioned feel frustrated and even
angry but please please remember this
faith is to believe what you do not see
the reward of that faith is that one day
very soon you will see what you believe
thank you you
I am an extremely passionate and as
you’ll soon find out very vocal advocate
for female entrepreneurship I truly
believe that finding the ways to invest
in women’s entrepreneurial potential as
manufacturers as employers as producers
as entrepreneurs is one of the surest
way than the most powerful an effective
way we have at rapid economic prosperity
and also social well-being for the many
for the 99% not just for the 1% this has
been my mission for my business for the
last five years
and it continues to be but in 2016 I
became increasingly disillusioned and
frustrated at the lack of progress I was
observing you see like many of us I was
sure when I founded my company in 2013
that you know the key to accelerating
women’s economic participation and to
unlocking all the what we call the
multiplied effects of investing in women
was enabling access to funding I believe
that funding was the solution after all
all the research I looked at or the data
point pointed out the fact that women
still just received 20% of all
institutional investments worldwide so
we started with crowdfunding we launched
a crowdfunding platform out of Oslo to
help women globally start grow lead
successful and sustainable businesses
and it made sense you see I believe that
crowdfunding and I still believe this
and I believe that then is also one of
the most powerful tools we have in
itself it’s revolutionary in that it
democratizes the flow of capital from a
small
and homogeneous group of people usually
white more older mature men and opened
it up to all of us providing us everyone
with the opportunity to invest in Fund
women layer businesses so it was a
no-brainer but I think in retrospect we
were wrong I was wrong and I’ll tell you
why despite the mounting evidence to
suggest that women investing women makes
for smart economics business sense had a
higher return on investment and this has
been proven from the yuan’s the World
Economic Forum to the World Bank despite
the increase in number of women
investors and angel investors despite
the amount of venture capitalists now
focusing on gender lens investing
globally despite all of that we are
still failing to invest in women
let’s take Europe for example while the
number of venture capital raised by
female founded companies in Europe has
more than tripled from 2012 to 2016
reaching an all-time high a six-year
high at a mere 14 1% in 2016 when
compared with the total of venture
capital that went to all women
entrepreneur you European companies the
share of investment going to women
founders actually decreased it dropped
in 2008 jobs in 2017 to 11.3% totaling
around less than 2 billion euros so what
if the lack of funding isn’t the problem
we should be trying to solve what if
funding isn’t the solution after all
what if maybe what we’re trying to
or for the lack of access to fund and
simply a symptom of a greater larger
more conscious problem at play one that
we need to overcome to be able to invest
women in equal measure
one that doesn’t get fixed with just
money and by the way the fact that most
of us think that money is the only
currency worth investing in when we’re
talking about contributing to women’s
economic empowerment says more about us
or society than it does about those
women so what if funding isn’t the first
step what if it’s finding because I
believe that to be where you cannot see
you first need to find and seek example
of who you want to be we need to find
examples of normal women and spy women
pioneering women they’re both men and
women young and old boys and girls can
aspire to as well and maybe just maybe
the key to finding is believing because
our actions or their I say our lack of
actions demonstrate that we simply do
not believe we do not believe that women
can start grow scale lead sustain one
successful businesses let alone exit
from them we do not believe that women
can build multi-million dollar
businesses let alone unicorns and by the
way unicorns is the term used by Silicon
Valley to talk about billion-dollar
companies and we still not we still do
not believe that women can have kids and
still be successful at a career and why
would we when in addition to failing to
invest in these companies
we’re also failing to recognize women’s
contribution economic contribution to
recognize their talents their smarts and
business their potential why would we
when we are in
when women are visibly absent from
mainstream media I know we live in a
time where we can claim alternative
facts but I’d like you to indulge me for
a second and let’s say the fact that I’m
about to show you our real according to
the global media monitor project which
was conducted in 2015 with amongst
others the UN only 5% of news noise on
the topic of the economy had a woman at
the central focus and stories between
2010 and 2015 women made up only 24% of
people featured in the media across all
channels and that figure sadly and
unsurprisingly remained stagnant during
that time it remained the same for five
years and online women aren’t faring any
better people like to bet on winning
horses no one likes to bet on a losing
one our task is to broaden our mindset
so that we so that our vision of a
because let’s not be mistaken there are
200 million women led businesses out
there or as I like to see it there’s 200
million opportunities to inspire so
let’s not convince ourselves that
finding inspiration and war models in
this pool of choice is an impossible
task you see it’s no longer good enough
to just state we cannot be what we
cannot see the quote in itself is widely
used to reference the lack of
representation and women across all
sectors politics finance
of research entrepreneurship you name it
although in its intention to inspire it
still fails to inspire action it may
serve us merely smart commentators and
passive observers of the problem instead
of making us participants active
participants and seekers of a solution
it gives it a kind of mayor Koopa a kind
of way out you know oh I did become an
entrepreneur because well I just don’t
see whether you’re an investor
journalist or conference organizer or
even a female entrepreneur it is no
longer good enough to say we don’t
invest in women because we can’t find
it’s no longer good enough to just say
we don’t write about women because we
cannot find it’s no longer good enough
to say we didn’t invite a woman to speak
because we just can’t find and it’s no
longer good enough for us as women to
not show up because we do not see and
it’s no longer good enough to find
excuses and yet fail to find examples it
is simply no longer good enough that we
can recognize these figures purely by
looking at their faces we know their
names we know their companies and pretty
much more than we would like to know
about them
and yet we fail to recognize women like
these by their face by their name by
their company her name by the way
is Sara Blakely and she is the founder
and CEO of Spanx and the only
billionaire who has joined women
billionaire who has joined The Giving
Pledge an initiative by Bill Gates
himself and Warren Buffett they advise
billionaires to basically give away
their wealth to philanthropy yet so many
of us are still
familiar with Sarah’s achievements you
see the key to investing in women’s
economic and entrepreneurial potential
is believing and the key to believing is
seeing and the key to seeing is finding
not funding I hope you still with me I
also think part of the problem is that
we put so much more value and emphasis
in the things that we own our material
possessions instead of the human capital
and potential we have right in front of
us which are women we spend on average 5
minutes of every day looking for lost
items whether our keys our bags or
purses our cars our phones at a personal
cost of 2.7 billion dollars and that
cost of the cost that we pay for
replacing these items that we lost and
what is sadly the truth is that figure
of 2.7 billion it is more than the
equivalent of money we gave the female
led companies in Europe
remember this graft we recognize the
importance of things in our lives we
even have really good words for them we
call them valuables that’s why when we
lose them we say things like hey have
you seen my keys and what do we do next
what do we intuitively do next we take
the time to go and find them to search
for them to look for our valuables yet
we fail to do the same when we say
things like hey I can’t be what I cannot
see in addition each day we spend an
increasingly a hell of a lot of time
online we make around 3 billion searches
on
all day that is one point to treat him
such as a year and much of this is
searching for information browsing the
web surfing the web or as I like to say
wasting our time and this obsession with
being online has led us an increasing
fear what we call FOMO the fear of
missing out but I think instead what we
should really be fearing is the fear of
folow the fear of losing out because it
often seems that it’s only when we lose
something it’s only loss that we are
moved to action we are moved to finding
solution think about the time you lost a
job a friend your home your freedom did
you wait and take stock maybe instead of
talking about they’re losing facts of
investing in women ie women still don’t
have women still don’t own as a way to
engage all of us and move us all into
action to act to find to invest we need
to place the emphasis on our collective
loss what are the lost opportunities in
investing in women economic potential
I’ll tell you what the losses are we
lose out on adding 12 trillion to our
global economies and in doing so lifting
so many out of many out of us out of
poverty we lose out on sending 15
million girls to school giving them eco
chance at education we lose out on the
opportunity to curve hunger worldwide by
providing food to seven hundred and
ninety-three million people a hundred
and fifty five million of which in 2016
were kids under the age of five
from extreme and repetitive malnutrition
we lose out on the opportunity to give
and save the lives of 4.2 million
infants who otherwise would die in the
first year of life because of poor
access to health and maternal care
should I go on I what cost is the price
of our inaction too much maybe when we
fully appreciate the value of what of
which we are losing by knowing to act
when we fully take ownership or women’s
economic empowerment as our own loss we
will finally be inspired to action to
recognize the incredible and valuable
contribution that 200 million women make
every day for their businesses to our
families to our communities to our
economies to the planet so in 2016 I was
disillusioned I was frustrated and I was
pissed off but I was tired of finding
excuses for myself so I was moved to
action that’s why in 2016 we launched
globally spotted a discovery platform
with a mission to raise more visibility
for inspiring companies started and
founded by women worldwide those with
innovative smart purpose driven business
models because who are we ultimately if
we do not leverage and showcase the
intellectual capital and property of
half of the world’s population so we
searched for female entrepreneurs who
are providing solutions to some of the
world’s most pressing challenges of our
time working towards sustainable future
working towards sustainable goals
or simply those who are trying to
provide for their families
we found what we believed we found not
just one not just two we found hundreds
within just one month
what failed us as a company is that we
are still a small team and we do not
have the resources to highlight to write
about all the companies that we find as
fast as we would like to we find women
like Jennifer who I found by the way at
one o’clock in the morning one day
searching as I do on female founder
pages on Facebook she’s working on
something I believe is truly
transformative she’s developed a scanner
that can scan any job ad for gender bias
in the words they could show you what
words are more masculine and what words
are more feminine they can tell you what
how much of a mass how masculine a job
ad is and then it neutralizes those
words to increase the chance of more
women and men applied to these jobs in
equal measure we’re constantly talking
about how do we get more women and work
this is one of the solutions how also
chloe chloe the company started by
sandra in france she’s trying to develop
food bioluminescence which is basically
the production and emission of light by
natural organism from animals from the
sea to be able to find and she has been
able to find as a stable source of
Lesa Lesa works on predicting weather in
the tropics where 80% of the people who
lived our farmers and by doing so she’s
able to help them pre hunt and increase
their yield in production and also their
profits and then finally there is
Vanessa Vanessa started a fire T which
is actually made of a plan called
moranga in Cameroon which has boost
amazing properties of seventy six
percent higher nutrients 50% higher
antioxidants and she discovered this
plant as a solution to publishers
finding a family her mother died of
diabetes and Mercer family are affected
by diabetes and the properties within
morality and the LEAs actually reduce
the effects of diabetes and finally I
would like to leave you all with this
last fort we may sometimes fail first be
slow to act we sometimes be
disillusioned feel frustrated and even
angry but please please remember this
faith is to believe what you do not see
the reward of that faith is that one day
very soon you will see what you believe
thank you you
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