Entrepreneurship is women

Entrepreneurship means having an idea and transforming it into an asset for the collective good.

This premise is also perfectly suited to female entrepreneurship, with the additional meaning of rejecting gender prejudices, and it is even more suited to our world of benefit corporations.

GammaForum is the most important national event dedicated to women’s and young people’s entrepreneurship. For 11 years has been promoting growth in the role of women and young people in production through development of innovative entrepreneurial initiatives.

For Way2Global, a female company (the ownership and majority of the workforce are women), a young company (the average age is just over 30) and a benefit company (B Corp-certified), there is no habitat better suited to its corporate culture and more in line with its value system. This is why they are actively participating in and supporting the initiative for the third year, in the belief that when it comes to making progress in this direction, there is always plenty of room for improvement.

“The figures for the number of women in business are growing and are very positive, but we cannot stop here: There is still much work to be done.” (Irene Tinagli – President of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs)

Although the percentage of startups run by women is rising sharply every year, Italy is still far from parity. Women still have to contend with prejudices, which are so deeply entrenched in our society that they impede and slow the process of integration.

So while GammaForum’s common thread is the development of female entrepreneurship, the theme chosen for this eleventh edition was “ConneXions for Growth”.

Establishing connections with the relevant community and the surrounding environment is an activity that is both natural and necessary for human beings: We owe evolution and the full development of our potential to these relationships.  Today more than ever, immersed in a hyper-connected reality, in the age of 5G, our future depends on connections. But, of the many possibilities available to us, which ones help and stimulate real growth?

The connections that are indispensable for the development of women’s and young people’s businesses in the current scenario are necessarily cross-border, global, inclusive and open to comparison with different cultures. This theme is particularly important to us in light of our Unique Transformative Proposition “Translations that unite the world”.

“You have to intermingle with other worlds and cultures to come up with the perfect idea!” (Anna Fiscale – Founder & CEO of Progetto Quid)

Connecting with the world, drawing inspiration from its wonderful diversity and connecting with the European Union, which also offers numerous support initiatives and provides incentives, both financial and otherwise. Because often money is not a sufficient incentive and it takes something that allows you to really believe, to convince you that a dream can become reality.

Consequently, the European Union is committed to encouraging female entrepreneurs with funding and contributions, but also with networking activities and ConneXions of talent that permit development of new ideas in a culture of sharing, where even the most daring enterprise can be brought to fruition.

Connections for growth are therefore European and global, but also “uncomfortable”. The paradox of our time is that in a hyper-connected reality, we limit ourselves to living inside narrow bubbles that technology tailors to our needs, allowing us to access what is necessary, while avoiding exploring and searching elsewhere. Yet in fact it is uncomfortable connections that would enable us to escape these insulating realities, to abandon our comfort zones and to once again imagine, try, dare and make mistakes, and thus grow and innovate.

“The real discomfort is not adapting and trying to somehow stay where we are. The real discomfort is going one step further, choosing to take risks and doing something different!” (Giampaolo Rossi, Founder of Fabbrica di Lampadine)

But what are the tools that female entrepreneurs must develop to encourage these connections and to enable their business to grow? All those whose innate characteristics include: trust, ambition, vision, resilience, networking skills and interdisciplinary expertise, which are prerequisites facing today’s challenges such as internationalisation and digitisation.

“We hold 30–40 courses on soft skills for men, but there is no need for women! Women are born with soft skills, which today are an indispensable advantage,” (Stefano Cuzzilla – President of Federmanager).

And since “digital is women” (Paola Scarpa – EMEA Women@ Leader, Director of Client Solution, Data & Insights at Google), at Way2Global, a digital globalizer that helps businesses establish themselves abroad with the power of its digital native arsenal, we are proud pioneers and champions of female entrepreneurship and employment. We have always actively supported women, even in traditionally male roles such as senior or technical/scientific positions, and now more than ever we intend to continue to use technological innovation and digital as a driver of social innovation. Not least in order to abolish prejudices and to promote the extra value that “the other half of the sky” can bring to the business world.