More women needed in start-ups, conference told

Enterprise Ireland says it could meet its target for the percentage of women-led start-up businesses a year early, however, it said that the country needs more women starting their own tech companies.

Since the establishment of the female enterprise unit within Enterprise Ireland in 2012, the number of start-ups led by women has grown from 7% in 2012 to 18% last year.

Speaking on day two of National Digital Week in Skibbereen, Co Cork, the manager of female entrepreneurship in Enterprise Ireland, Sarita Johnston, said that the target set for the end of next year is 20% — and it may be achieved by the end of 2015.

Ms Johnston said that the growth in the number of start-ups led by women was “clear evidence” that current initiatives were working.

However, she said: “There is still a lot of untapped potential out there. One thing is that we need more female-led tech businesses.”

She said there needed to be a change at ground level to encourage more women into the area of science, technology, engineering and maths enterprise.

She said while current policies were succeeding in developing women entrepreneurs, more could be done, citing tax breaks and other measures which apply in Britain.

Yesterday’s presentation at the four-day National Digital Week event centred on the role of women in social entrepreneurship, and Katherine Licken, assistant secretary in the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, said that there was huge potential online for many Irish companies.

In the 18 months since the department established its trading online voucher scheme — whereby some matching funding is provided to applicants to develop online sales potential — 2,000 people have availed of them.

Ms Licken said €6bn is spent each year in Ireland online and 70% goes overseas, while 23% of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) here have an online presence that allows them to sell a product.

She said the evidence so far was that people who used the voucher scheme had managed to increase their business as a result, such as the example of one woman who began a business hiring baby seats at airports, and who now has 250 seats for hire from Dublin and Shannon Airports, mostly hired by people arriving on long-haul flights.

On the broader issue of broadband, she said that the Government had a clear mandate to deliver high- speed connectivity to every home or building “whether it’s Sherkin island or Arranmore island” by 2020 at the latest.

The keynote speaker yesterday, Ingrid Vanderveldt, said that women in business still faced challenges but said in her view, gender quotas were not the answer.

Ms Vanderveldt, founder and CEO of Empowering a Billion Women 2020, an initiative which includes a €92m credit fund for entrepreneurs, said any business needed to be based on set targets rather than allocating certain positions on the basis of gender.

National Digital Week continues today and tomorrow, with today’s schedule including a number of speakers on the issue of the digital future of retail and services.

Among those giving presentations are senior personnel from PayPal UK and Ireland and specialists from Google.

www.digitalweek.ie