Accelerate Action this International Women’s Day
tl;dr
Women entrepreneurs can’t wait 136 years for gender parity - they're already accelerating action using AI-powered tools like Flip the Script to overcome funding bias and practicing strategic workarounds for success.
The Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce (CanWCC) is driving change through policy advocacy, free community support, and initiatives like the Momentum Membership and Scholarship program to help women entrepreneurs thrive.
Join the movement - advocate for better policies, access free resources, and support gender equity.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is “Accelerate Action”. The World Economic Forum says it will take 136 more years to achieve gender parity, as far as we’ve come already. So do we need to accelerate that? Heck yeah.
But what does this mean for women entrepreneurs, when we don’t have that kind of time to spare? It means they get comfortable with the workaround as an alternative route to success. They’re doing it already: many women entrepreneurs take the time to educate themselves and prepare with proven programs such as Flip the Script, and also Connection Silicon Valley.
This month, and especially this International Women’s Day, we are unabashedly looking at how the Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce is taking Action, and leveraging technology and AI to Accelerate results for Canadian women entrepreneurs everywhere.
Control What You Can
The current system isn’t built for women, so until things change fundamentally, we’ve got to adapt to reality and get on with business. For instance, we know funding for women is historically tragic; to Accelerate Action, how do we both successfully access what’s available as well contribute to growing that resource?
In the case of Flip the Script, it recognizes that bias is inherent, because it’s been measured. And what can be measured can be refined, such as a communication methodology specifically developed to counter bias and neutralize it to some degree.
That’s only one example - but Flip the Script’s “workaround” helps women get more funding more frequently.
The Power of Practice
Another workaround to help you beat bias is to be prepared - by practicing until you’re ready for any and every eventuality. How? You’ll probably want to use a multitude of methods, including pitch practice events or even pitch competitions. These are designed to put you under pressure and make sure you can still deliver - your businesses’ future depends on it.
However, how do you prepare for all the eventualities when it comes to investor questions? Ideally you’re getting ahead of those questions so you’re ready for them, but they’re hard to come up with yourself, so what do you do?
Flip the Script’s simulation software gives women a virtual environment with AI-enabled avatars representing different funder types: bank managers, angel investors, VCs.
The software takes your business inputs and your pitch and generates intentionally-biased questions for the entrepreneur to answer. It will constantly come up with new questions, so founders have the opportunity to continue practicing until they’re feeling confident.
You’ll also have immediate feedback from the software that will help you refine your answers to improve your chances of securing more funding.
Accelerate Your Business
You’re part of accelerating progress for women with your success; most women know this and it’s why they support and cheer each other on. We love to see it!
Another way women provide support to each other is by organizing and even incorporating social enterprises and nonprofits. The reality is that women entrepreneurs are supported by many such organizations, who each contribute to the incremental changes that will accelerate those 136 years to gender parity.
One such example is the Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce. It’s free to join because a core belief is that those needing advocacy should not have to bear the financial burden of fixing discrimination inherent in society and government policy. However, fixing these will result in a more favourable business environment for women innovators & entrepreneurs.
Joining organizations that advocate for policy change that makes a difference to you and your community can help accelerate parity in a very real way. The Canadian Women’s Chamber has research-informed policy recommendations and the opportunity to get them in front of government.
Just showing up is an amplifier and is your own act of advocacy for yourself and for women like you. In the meantime, your business not only benefits its team and its customers, it also contributes to advancing gender equity by simply standing up and being counted. CanWCC founder Nancy Wilson makes no bones about it: “The more of us there are, the harder we are to ignore.”
Collective Impact
Share CanWCC’s advocacy and policy work with your friends of all genders, who can support the movement for gender equity by joining the free CanWCC Community. If you are so inclined, you’re also able to support their work financially by joining their new Momentum Membership, with an annual membership cost of $500.
If you’re an entrepreneur looking for assistance raising funding, CanWCC’s charitable foundation is launching their Scholarship program this month, where you can gain access to programming including Flip the Script - free of cost - thanks to donors and sponsors who believe in supporting under-represented founders.
To highlight a quote as our parting words: we hope you take to heart and never forget that “collectively, we can accelerate Action for gender equality.”
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