Why we should stop talking about Diversity?
This month we celebrated International Women’s Day, a day to commemorate and celebrate the roles that women play in our lives, our societies and the world. There is an African saying, ‘If you educate a woman, you educate the whole family and the generation to come’, yet we don’t see many women representation in business, science, technology and leadership (at least compared to the proportion of men in those roles) and this is prevalent in the startup and the venture capital industry too.
According to a US report, less than 3% funding goes to women and even lesser for Women of Color and that less than 3% of founding venture partner at Women (HBR 2021) It is often easy to blame the system of so called ‘Bro-culture’ but if we look closely, it is refreshing that never has it been so important than now to create opportunities for women and people from diverse backgrounds into startups.
Many Australian VC firms like Airtree, Square Peg, Blackbird have Women Partners and in leadership roles. Globally, we are seeing women founded venture funds that are betting on women founders. We’re also seeing funds dedicated to People of Color and startup programs that support startups serving the underrepresented communities.
Whether Africa, Latin America or India, the emerging economies are leading the diversity of startup ecosystem- and why not? these economies have had women as the backbone of the informal ‘barter system’. While the husbands go out working and bringing income home, these women have had to manage the funds, household expenses and manage to save and to loan to one another (see the rise of Microfinance in Bangladesh).
Thus, we are bullish in the future of startup ecosystem to be more diverse and inclusive. But each of us have to do our parts to get there!
At Illume, we’re focused on diversifying the startup ecosystem through the talent pipeline of graduates.
With our commitment to #DiversityInStartups & #BreaktheBias, we’re launching our much awaited Women In Startup Program, to empower women graduates and students to enter the startup and venture capital industry.
If you’re interested to start or work in a startup, we’d love to hear from you.
Learn more about the Women In Startup Program here.
Cheers,
Laxmi, Founder | Illume Foundation
What’s happening at Illume?
We started 2022 with the launch of our new initiative, Robotic Process Automation Program in collaboration with VIS Global, program designed for experiential learning on Automation as our initiative for #AdvancingEconomy. We’d like to thank VIS Global, Saurabh, Aditi, Janani and the team for this opportunity!
Illume 2022 Fellowship Program-Semester 1 Cohort
We’re excited to welcome 8 fellows who are currently undertaking the Fellowship Program. We’d like to thank our Industry Partners- Possible Ventures, CharityBay, Boobobutt for supporting the program.
Our fellowship programs run every two months and applications are on rolling basis, so apply via our website to be considered!
Time to Celebrate!!
As we come out of COVID, we were soooo excited meet our Illume alumni and the cohort in person . This is what our fellowship is about- community and lifelong friendships!
Illume Alumni Update:
Congratulations Illume Alumni Abhinav Jena, Pragya Gautam, Basil and Sai for securing full-time role in your graduated area- Yehhh!!!!
We’re hiring:
Marketing Co-ordinator, Business Analysts and Customer Success roles for Energy tech startup in Renewable Energy. If you are driven to make an impact and want to work in a fast growing startups, apply now.
Learn about the roles here:
That’s all for now!
As we leave- Guess what does MVP stand for in a startup world? Most Valued Player? Nope- Minimum Viable Product. Learn about MVP here.
Ciao!!!
Illume Team