Dernièrement j’ai entendu parler d’une startup qui venait de recevoir du financement pour offrir conseils et produits de beauté/santé en ligne. Ça semblait évident comme marché, mais je n’y avais jamais pensé. C’est à ce moment que je me suis rendu compte qu’aucun des plans d’affaires qu’a reçu MSU ne ciblait les femmes. Pas un seul des entrepreneurs qui nous a contacté n’était une femme (Correction: en fait une femme entrepreneure nous a contacté, Christina Tomaz-Young de VC-TV. Mille excuses Christina). Aucun des investisseurs potentiels qu’on a rencontrés n’était une femme. Et bien que je suis loin d’avoir fait le tour du milieu, jusqu’à présent je n’ai rencontré que deux femmes impliquées dans le financement de démarrage pour entreprises en technologie et les deux géraient des fonds publics.
Cela fait longtemps que le problème est connu. Il existe plein de programmes pour encourager les filles à choisir des carrières en sciences pures et en ingénierie et prévenir leur décrochage. Malgré cela, en génie électrique à McGill lorsque j’y étais, les femmes ne comptait que pour 18% des étudiants du premier cycle. A l’époque je croyais que ça affecterait seulement la façon dont l’ingénierie se ferait. Mais je soupçonne maintenant que ça a un impact bien plus grand. Si les femmes sont sous-représentées lors de la conception des produits et si elles ne participent pas à la décision de financer les nouvelles initiatives, l’offre de nouveaux produits et services technologiques peut-elle vraiment répondre à leurs besoins? N’y aurait-il pas là une belle opportunité commerciale?
C’est toujours un plaisir pour John et moi de rencontrer des entrepreneurs, mais ce sera un plaisir particulier de parler affaires avec des entrepreneures. Alors mesdames, qu’attendez-vous?
by heri
a montreal, il y a Kim Auclair, qui a lancé macquebec, et Marie Chantale Turgeon, qui fait de son côté créacamp, un democamp reservé aux filles … j’en ai parlé sur mon blogue, on en a débattu tres longtemps lors du dernier barcamp avec Martine Pagé…
sinon a part ca, je pense que les 2 mondes sont vraiment a part a montréal. a moins d aller chercher activement sur le terrain.
by Mat
You’ll find Tara’s article on the topic insightful:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/womenintech/2007/09/17/women-who-risk-making-women-in-technology-visible.html
by Antonio
Brana Malobabic-Giancristofaro, a women entrepreneur (Saint Laurent, Montreal) who holds B.Sc. in electrical engineering invented and developed energy-efficient wireless sensor network technology. She combined this technology with her patented live chess tournament management to create the MonRoi system. Within about a year since the product launch, live chess matches are followed by 100,000 spectators from over 100 countries at http://www.monroi.com.
by Antonio
Top 100 women entrepreneurs in Canada: http://www.monroi.com/GP/Docs/W100.xls
Spa Eastman owner (in top 100), Joscelyna Debuc was one of the sponsors of MonRoi’s International Women’s Grand-Prix: http://www.monroi.com/GP
GlobVision is in the same building as MonRoi. It is founded, owned and run by a woman entrepreneur Armineh Garabedian. GlobVision provides intelligent data monitoring and behavior prediction based decision support solutions. http://www.globvision.com/
by daniel
Thanks for all your comments and pointing out local entrepreneures. It’s telling however, that a post about women in tech, on a blog about technology startups, only attracted comments from men
John and I are going to have to work on that.
by Kristina Tomaz-Young
Hello Gentlemen… and Ladies (as some must certainly be following your postings)
Whoa, hold your horses, last I checked, I am a female
and am reading your postings and comments….am just catching up with your discussions as I have been feverishly building my VC-TV start-up in front of and also very much behind the scenes the last months. What you see today at my site is just a prototype of the optimal vision I have in mind. My venture adventures have taken to interesting cities, introduced me to a host of interesting, captivating people in the VC, start-up, advisory and IT world, and limited the number of hours available for a good night’s sleep as I work long (but enjoyable) hours ardently at accomplishing what I have in mind (still tons to do!)
I agree that it would be “genial!” as we say in Montreal to see more female entrepreneurs present themselves. As shown by your comments, we know they exist, that others before them have created phenomenal success stories (some are my role models!) and there are more hidden jewels out there already and to be created – albeit, we should not ignore that female entrepreneurs are finding ways to explore funding sources and network in the biz community in a variety of different ways.
Let’s focus the discussion on ways that can entice those female entrepreneurs out and to get the next generation of women more active and present in start-up ventures. Are you ready for the challenge?
by Susan Read
I am an exec recruiter and an former VC investor who is also concerned about the very small number of women enterpreneurs and executives in Montreal.
A small group of us have recently formed a Women in Technology Group associated with CATA (Canadian Advanced Technology Association) to encourage and coach / mentor montreal entrepreneures.
Our first event ” La commercialisation de produit” is planned as a lunch session for Nov 8th, and the second event “Symposium sur l’enterpreneuriat” will be held in early February 2008 (we are still looking for speakers for this one).
I would love to hear from anyone who would like to be on our emailing list, or who would like to get involved as a speaker or coach.
Please contact me at Susan@SusanReadTalent.com
by Andrée Pelletier
Here I come!
Je suis une femme entrepreneure et j’ai un projet de Start-up en développement. J’aimerais bien faire ma place dans ce monde très masculin. Je crois que j’ai une bonne idée dans un contexte tout approprié.
Il me manque l’expérience d’un start-up (avis au mentor potentiel) et du financement (avis aux investisseurs).
À suivre…
by Kristina
Hi Everyone!
Just a little head’s up that we (VC-TV…venture cap tv) covered Susan Read’s CATA WIT (Women in Technology) luncheon yesterday (thanks so much, Susan, for a terrific, valuable event! Looking forward to more!) We’ll be holding the three part videocast series on our site (www.vc-tv.biz) as soon as our editor completes his work on it (should be in a little over a week). There were some awesome, impressive ladies present there, and it was a privilege, honor and inspiration to meet them. Very best to you, ladies and the gentlemen, in all your initiatives!