Great news for female founders! QBO Innovation Hub is officially partnering with Investing in Women (IW), an initiative of the Australian Government, for one of their programs—Influencing Gender Norms.
Investing in Women promotes workplace gender equality and access to growth capital for women-owned and women-led enterprises in South East Asia. To them, campaign partnerships are crucial to the implementation of Influencing Gender Norms, which seeks to positively shift conversations around four key norms that limit women's economic participation: that 1) women's primary role is that of carer of homemaker; 2) men's role is that of primary income earner; 3) certain job types are specific to women and others to men; and 4) men are better in leadership and women in support roles.
An April 2020 study by PwC entitled 2020 Philippine Startup Survey: COVID-19 Edition found that of the 90 founders surveyed, 78% were male, while 22% were women. QBO understands that while women in the Philippines are taking significant strides in the tech and STEM fields, it is essential to further amplify these stories to encourage more women to do the same.
For this exciting campaign, QBO plans to build on its existing Startup Pinay program, which has been creating and supporting a community of female-led and female-empowered startups. By tapping into this network, the campaign will profile strong female startup founders in the country and highlight strategies that will address the challenges women founders face. This is all done in the hopes of creating the perception that anyone—male or female—can strive in the tech industry.
You can find more information on the partnership with Investing in Women over here: investinginwomen.asia/posts/iw-forges-new-partnerships-influencing-gender-norms/