Become A Women Who Wow Mentor
15th October 2018
LaunchBox, Tangent’s Student Accelerator, is a competitive summer accelerator programme run at Trinity College Dublin for startups that supports student companies through funding and a structured schedule of expert speakers. Despite statistics from the startup industry which show that companies founded by gender-diverse teams are more successful, traditionally LaunchBox has faced challenges in getting female students to apply.
We strongly believe that LaunchBox would be a better programme it if had a better gender ratio. We know that the startup ecosystem in Dublin and beyond would also benefit from an increase in the number of female entrepreneurs supported and encouraged by Trinity. Mentorship of female students who express an interest in startups, business, and social enterprise will help to improve the culture. It will also encourage more women to consider entrepreneurship as a viable option after College.
Building on the success of the first two years of LaunchBox, we are running Women Who Wow – a mentorship programme aimed at attracting and assisting female students who are interested in setting up their own business or social venture. Since Women Who Wow started, we have already seen positive results. LaunchBox 2016 had around 12% female participation; in 2018 that figure was closer to 35%, with 44% of our startups either female-led or gender diverse. We are moving the dial, but have a way to go still.
If you would like to be involved in our Women Who Wow programme and you are available for a couple of hours each month starting in November, to offer your experience and advice, we would love to hear from you. You can find out more online here>> or email me, alison.treacy@tcd.ie