Ashoka
The global pandemic that we are facing right now has created a wide-reaching impact on different areas. A lot of sectors of the economy and processes in which the system have been organized had to react quickly and adapt to the challenging times.
Yet in this unprecedented moment, we are also seeing the power of the changemaking movement and the vital role social entrepreneurs - Ashoka Fellows - play. These system change leaders adapt quickly, model a calm and focused urgency, organize across sectors, and do what social entrepreneurs always do: They envision a new norm, engage citizens as changemakers in the solution, and build a new future through collaboration.
The global landscape of the conferences has also been affected dramatically – hundreds of events have been cancelled or postponed. A significant number of them have been transferred to virtual spaces, where they can happen irrespective of travel restrictions. In general, it is fair to say, the conference sector as we knew it no longer exist at present.
Our focus would is to bring together communities of women leaders/ experts in the 5 fields we identified as the most under-represented (Start-ups, Economic Development, Use of Technology, Business, Environment). For that, we would create communities of practice online by leveraging global Ashoka Programs.
How?
- By building a database of female experts and showcasing them on our platform.
- By hosting a community process.
We want to create a community of women social entrepreneurs. Topics that emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, will find their place in the virtual community, like funding sources for women and women led start-ups, well-being sessions for home office with caring responsibilities, voices of women in economic policy making. Organized webinars and online gatherings will circulate around building connections between existing experts per field, exchange of central topics defined by the community and specifically to overcome the gender disparity in their field.
Specific, we will host a few community meetings starting in January 2021 and finishing in March having as main objective creating safe spaces for women social entrepreneurs so they can connect with one another and source ideas to tackle challenges they are facing in their work. We will facilitate the discussion, prompting others to share their ideas and insights and curating invitations to facilitate relevant connections between women changemakers.
Join our community!
Ashoka, women social entrepreneurs and conferences
Even though women constitute almost 50% of the world’s population, they continue to be disproportionately underrepresented in leadership positions and systematically face a lack of access to the social and capital resources that would allow them to maximize their success. According to The World Bank, the structural and social barriers begin in childhood, but as boys and girls gets older, the gender gap in poverty further widens.
The ascensions of women to top leadership positions in male dominated industries remains rather low despite breakthroughs made by women in the last decades. In the EU, women still tend to be employed less when compared to men, are employed in lower-paid sectors, work on average 6 hours longer per week in total (paid and unpaid) but have fewer paid hours, take more career breaks and face fewer and slower promotions.
However, the reason why women and men have different leadership paths it is not because they are innately different, but because their experiences are substantially contrasting. As a woman, it is less likely to be recognized as a leader. It is important to know that if people are regularly exposed to certain leaders’ typologies, leaders who fit the same profile in the future will be more likely to be noticed. One sure way to make people see more women as leaders is to introduce more women in authentic leadership roles. And this is where high-level conferences can be more than what they already are. Conferences are part of the work experience and that is why attending companies, non-profit organizations and public institutions can have a real impact on the representation and experiences of women. Women entrepreneurs themselves have stated that lack of visibility in their fields on a national level is one of the main barriers to success. Their active participation on high-level events might be game-changing opportunities.
Europe offers a great variety of conferences throughout the year. These are considered to be a space not only for connecting with people from across the continent, but for expanding your knowledge, learning beyond your field of interest and finding the unusual actors that might be a great fit for your project. Founders, investors, entrepreneurs, global thinkers are all gathered in a vibrant community that can only guarantee an experience translated in a constant evolution. However, no matter how high-level a conference is, the pattern that is so stringent in society repeats itself: women are underrepresented no matter the country, no matter the field. Why is this happening and how can we reshape the pattern?
A dive into our results - An overview
We initially selected 300 conferences from 27 countries in Europe. After applying our qualitative and quantitative indicators (number of participants >500, seniority of speakers, partners connected to their relevance in the field, visibility indicators, diversity of participants) that define a high-level conference, we reduced the sample to a number of 215 high-level conferences, from 25 countries, divided in 12 fields.
Altogether the conferences gathered more than 12,000 speakers in 2019. Each one of them had a main theme and a set of organizational details that makes it uniquely stand out from other similar events. However, despite these favorable circumstances and the great number of organized conferences, there is a major alarming detail that overshadows their impact: the conferences do not manage to fully respect the principle of gender equality, mirroring the same under representation that we see so abiding in the society. Out of 12.863 speakers in 2019, 69.65% were men, with only 30.35% were women.
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Our female Ashoka Fellows said...
During our mapping we also asked our network of women Ashoka Fellows from Europe what was their experience at such events. Panels at high-level conferences are a prime opportunity to showcase a diverse range of opinions and perspectives on a given topic. However, these sessions can be rather homogenous, and often feature a “lone woman”.
88% of female Ashoka Fellows that answered the questionnaire sat on a panel at a conference being the only woman and 18% of them report having an experience that made them not attend such future events.
And the bright side is...
Although the events scene is dominated by male speakers, no matter the country or the field, we also must mention the impressive efforts made so that women can be more heard.
Women’s Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship (WISE)
Ashoka Arab World (AAW) created the Women’s Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship (WISE) as a platform for cooperation among women social entrepreneurs at all stages, fostering an environment where Arab women are inspired and empowered to change to the world. WISE builds a comprehensive, holistic and inclusive program to address the unique challenges that women face. The initiative aims to empower and equip Arab women with the necessary tools to become leaders, innovators and changemakers. In addition, WISE takes into account the economic, social, and cultural factors that inhibit women’s ability to thrive as social entrepreneurs in the Arab world.
Celebrating ChangemakHERS
Ashoka also sought to understand how female social entrepreneurs lead and innovate, and how these insights could help more girls and women drive positive social change. Through a mapping of diverse women social entrepreneurs in Ashoka’s network—the largest in the world— “Celebrating ChangemakHERS” offers an analysis of the barriers and opportunities related to women’s leadership in social innovation, and a roadmap for how the social entrepreneur, business, and donor communities can create enabling environments for women and girls to succeed as changemakers: people who take creative action to solve social problems for the benefit of all.
Empow’Her
Empow’Her is a social venture working for women’s empowerment, creating tools and opportunities for women to thrive as entrepreneurs.
They believe in every woman’s right and capacity to improve their own economic status and well-being and to participate in and contribute to our societies. Our trainings and support programs are designed to answer to women’s specific needs and are adaptable depending on the context in which we operate. At the European level, their program Women’Act Europe connects women social entrepreneurs and provides them with all the tools to scale up their project and grow their initiatives.
The Brussels Binder
The Brussels Binder is a common good – a free database consisting of profiles of women experts based in Europe. It covers a multitude of sectors and it is constantly growing. Finally, it is a place where women experts connect and exchange.
Whether you are a conference organiser seeking for expertise or an expert available to speak about your work, the Brussels Binder serves as a hub where members of different communities can connect. For conference organisers, using the Brussels Binder is an easy, free and quick way to get access to a Europe-wide network of quality speakers. For experts, it is a tool to increase the visibility and impact of their analysis.
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Staff List
Florentine Roth
Ashoka Europe Strategy Integrator | Partner Ashoka Globalizer
Florentine Roth has been with Ashoka since 2018. As a partner at Ashoka Germany, she is currently accompanying potential new Ashoka Fellows through the intensive selection process. In doing so, she places particular emphasis on diversity and inclusion. As a member of the Globalizer team, she also develops strategies for systemic change with fellows worldwide. Before Ashoka, she conducted research on value systems in social entrepreneurship and led social projects at a local level for an NGO in Peru.
Martyna Markiewicz
Co-Director Ashoka Poland
Partnership Manager for Ashoka Poland
In Ashoka since December 2018, responsible for various partnerships of Ashoka Poland. She manages Program WzmocniONE, that aims to support initiatives that aim at building the world of equal dignity of gender. She has managed partnerships with Schneider Electric and Veolia Foundation on different topics.
Martyna is a trainer, project coordinator and community organiser. For the last 12 years she has worked with various organisations, institutions, groups (activism coordinator for Amnesty International Poland, coordinator of the Paca Community Centre) and also co-founded two non governmental organisations. She is also a certified drama trainer, actress and joker of Theatre of the Oppressed., working with various groups, mostly around the issue of gender oppression. Martyna has the experience of working with the business sector, mostly in HR. In her free time she trains MMA and makes jams.