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FEMTECH PROGRAMME ATTRACTS FORTY-THREE ASPIRING WOMAN ENTREPRENEURS The Maxum Business Incubator, at The Innovation Hub in Pretoria, received forty three submissions from pioneering Gauteng woman to be considered for entry into the Femtech Support Programme for Women. Femtech, a new initiative sponsored by the Embassy of Finland, targets woman in high-tech industries with the long-term objective to increase the number of woman owning and growing technology start-up companies in South Africa. Dr. Jill Sawers, Manager of Entrepreneurship at The Innovation Hub, explains “There has been limited emphasis on aggressively stimulating the growth of a pipeline of woman in technical entrepreneurial fields. Femtech will bring together woman with an understanding of business development, and persons from technical backgrounds, to find potential synergies for creating high-tech businesses. Short-listed candidates will be announced on 7 March 2009 and invited to attend a two-day ‘idea generating workshop’ on 16 & 17 March. Candidates will be presented with identified industry problems and encouraged to develop innovative solutions in the areas of national priority such as ICT, alternative energy, security, education, and biotechnology. The projects core team members are Dr. Jill Sawers (The Innovation Hub, South Africa), Tina James (icteum Consulting, South Africa), Claudia Morrell (Multinational Development of Woman in Technology, USA), and Julie Kirk (The Professional Development Programme for South African Woman in ICT). “Innovative solutions are required to address national challenges and it is vital to stimulate the development of small, agile, innovative companies. Femtech is specifically designed to provide an opportunity for woman to start and sustain high-tech businesses. The overriding goal is to create a network of potential resource persons providing on-going mentoring, training, financial resources, and technical partnerships for woman entrepreneurs” says Dr. Sawers.
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