Big thank you for all of you who attended our #StartHerSuccess event two weeks ago. For those of you unable to join, we would like to share some of our high-lights from the event. Visit the photo gallery at the bottom of this post. Also a special thank you to our event day volunteers Bhargavi, Divvya and Nancy!
Welcome Introduction
Warm welcome from Facebooks Geraldine Lim, who shared about the #SheMeansBusiness initiative to support women entrepreneurs, followed by our own Girls in Tech Singapore lead Hayley Bakker introducing #TechforGood in our current society.
Fireside Chat
Our two entrepreneurs, Gail Wong from Live True and Raena Lim from Style Theory shared what inspired them to set up their companies and what ‘Tech for Good’ means in their day to day lives. Fueled by documentaries on ‘Fast Fashion’ and having seen the environmental impact that fashion is having these days, Raena believes StyleTheory has the potential to reduce fashion waste and encourage sharing economy. Having said that, it took Raena a couple of different (and quite unrelated!) startup ideas before meeting her co-founder and deciding to pursue StyleTheory.
At StyleTheory we have users with different wishes… those who want to try out designer bags or have access to a BIGGER wardrobe and on the other hand we have users who are looking to REDUCE the size of their wardrobe by subscribing to our platform and the sharing economy that we offer – Raena Lim, Co-founder StyleTheory
Gail sees that investors are increasingly considering the social and environmental impact of their investments. She will continue to coach and support women entrepreneurs to make sure women have a say in the future of technology and business.
However bottom line profit is still the main driver for investors. A good sign is that investors are increasingly recognizing that having female founders is a strong indicator of higher financial performance. – Gail Wong, Coach at Live True and SheEO.
Panel Discussion
Three diverse panelists, all entrepreneurs, from industries ranging from e-commerce to bio-chemistry to menstrual products. Yasaman from 42lab is making mini-labs accessible and affordable for schools to introduce their students to chemistry at a young age. Olive shared how her early startup failures helped her to better understand and support her SME clients. Shivangi from TruCup shared how tech is enabling her reach and make an impact on a much larger population of (young) women to lift the taboo on and increase awareness for menstruation products that can improve health and environment.
Networking
It was great to see so many of you hand around for some networking, food and wine after the event! Luckily our speakers and panelists were able to stay for the networking and to answer some Questions & Answers ranging from startup funding to overcoming Imposter Syndrome.
We look forward to meet you at our events in the future!
