The Centre for Research and Education on Women and Work (CREWW), a Carleton University Research Centre hosted at the Sprott School of Business, in partnership with the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (WEKH), funded by the federal government and led by Ryerson University’s Diversity Institute in collaboration with Ryerson’s Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship and the Ted Rogers School of Management, were pleased to participate in Invest Ottawa’s flagship event, AccelerateOTT on June 11, 2019.
Andrew Arnott from RBC gave CREWW and WEKH a big shout out during his introduction to the panel, Pressing Forward: Female Founders and Funders 2.0, moderated by Jill Earthy, Head of Female Funders, powered by Highline BETA. Some of the key take-aways from the session included, “Every entrepreneur needs to start, grow, and fund business”, “Champion Each Other”, “Recognize and address bias, particularly in funding”, “Women invest”, and “Cut the cheque”.
Only 16% of Canadian businesses are owned or led by women and yet studies show that by advancing women’s economic participation in the economy Canada could add up to $150 billion in GDP. (https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/107.nsf/eng/home). To that end the Government of Canada is advancing women’s economic empowerment with the first ever Women Entr
epreneurship Strategy (WES), a $2-billion investment that seeks to double the number of women-owned businesses by 2025. CREWW is proud to partner with WEKH in advancing this initiative.
Congratulations to Ashley Walker of The Evidence Network who was the proud winner of the draw for a 50% discount for the one-week professional development program, Advancing Women in Leadership offered by CREWW, a $3,300 value. Thanks to Uzayr Siddiqui of Droneentry, a Carleton graduate, veteran entrepreneur and visitor to the table who helped us by drawing the business card of the winner.
We appreciate all who dropped by the table and particularly the comment received from one visitor, “Every time I went by the WEKH table it was full of entrepreneurs wanting to learn more. I think that’s a sign of a very successful networking day!”…and we couldn’t agree more.
AccelerateOTT 2019 was the most well attended in the seven-year history of the event. Check out the AccelerateOTT Twitter live feed for all the exciting highlights of the day.