Leading Latin American women to take the risk of transforming ideas into realities that can improve their financial stability is a challenge. Traditionally, women are brought up to work for someone or be on a payroll to guarantee an income that gives them the feeling of security and independence. This paper presents the experience of connecting a group of women for a lapse of time with digital entrepreneurs, successful persons with years of experience and know-how, that will help them learn to unleash their capacity to change an idea into an opportunity to make a profitable business. Some of the results of this experience go from the knowledge gained, the loss of fear in presenting a solution using networking and the one-to-one in mentorship towards the execution of a Startup. A great amount of ideas flow, some get to be implemented, others not, but the experience gained during one weekend changes the vision of women who learn to overcome the fear of taking a risk.
The gender situation in Panama is the same as in many Latin American countries,
and the same worldwide. Reviewing this situation and the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDG), there’s a great distance from reality even when it quotes “promote
prosperity and protect our planet” something we are conscious that has to be done from
all aspects of the humanity. One of the goals attached to this paper is Goal 5, related to
gender equality [
In major economic studies held in 21st century, most Latin American girls and
women are not brought up with the mentality of being their own bosses. This idea of
self-employment must be promoted from the home environment and supported by the
society, to increase financial stability and guarantee a better life for families [
Due to these and other facts stated previously, governments create policies to gain points on gender equity, such as establishing social oriented programs for entrepreneurs to strengthen women qualifications and promoting their participation as part of a sustainable economy offering to the market domestic products and services; the latter are mostly the type of startups Panamanian women develop.
So, what is to be done? We can start at the premise of finding a way to make dreams
come through, but these dreams must be based on the actual trends and needs, using the
benefits of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) to present products
and services that can compete with a specific niche in the market. This means that it is
necessary to work on the ICT knowledge. The author in [
Any effective startup must imply the presence of two components: mentors and
network [
Then, who are mostly interested in these types of workshops? What are they expecting of startup weekends? What are the cue motivations of these women? What difference exists in women’s motivation according to their education and profession? Do they identify themselves as entrepreneurs, just with one weekend? What experience do the organizers get out of doing several Startup Weekends? These are some questions we hope to share for future interchange and investments. 2 2.1
Traditionally, the human being reacts to events in many ways, and these are usually
due to several independent variables, some related to: background, gender, age, values,
academic level, culture, and we could continue mentioning one after another that in the
end turns out to be a complex being. This complexity often affects the way women and
men perform their tasks, which is why [
So [
One of the goals of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is to discover the
factors that determine the levels of entrepreneurship activity in a specific country, as
well as the factors that favor or hinder businesses and can be used to guide the
formulation of effective policies designed to promote dynamism in business. We would
like to comment on the most recent GEM report issued of Panama [
Two findings we consider of relevance are: of 71.3% of women with cultural
acceptance of business activity, only 3.1% are established businesswomen; Panama is
the third country where women report to have the highest entrepreneurial activity rate.
On the other hand [
Startup Weekends are events held worldwide, organized in several regions:
European, Asian, North American, Latin-American and now in 2020, African and
Oceania. In [
The complete methodology to carry out a Startup Weekend has been verified and is available for organizations that are interested in training women to be entrepreneurs, to take a risk and prove ideas, team up, meet professionals, CEOs, and other people with successful companies and large history of business experience. The methodology includes several forms and templates to recruit girls and women, mentors, facilitators and organizing team. Countries such as Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Guam, among others, have opted to use SWWE as a mechanism to reduce the gender gap in entrepreneurship, empowering women with STEM skills that are necessary, to develop creative minds. 3 3.1
The organization and execution of Startup Weekends Women edition (SWWE) was
based on the one proposed by [
The first stage included finding co-organizers, defining roles and responsibilities. Teamwork was very important, and so was the diversity among the team, mainly because of the variety of people that signed up for the Startup Weekends. Defining sponsors and the marketing strategy; the venue, date, website and means for registration were also part of this first stage. A budget was established and reviewed at the end of each event.
Attendees were prepared for the event, orientated on What to do? What to bring? Who to invite? Which was the best option to attend? Let them know the coordinates. The connection prior to the event was very important and influenced the amount of people who attended.
The schedule included a full three-day organization with short lectures on topics such as teamwork, networking, communicating skills, the know-how of entrepreneurship, technical skills using software and hardware as means to innovate, and preparing the elevator pitch. Further on, encouraging networking while choosing an idea to work on. As a result of this we have one-minute pitches and team building.
The third stage includes the follow-up session, where coaches and facilitators contact the attendees to find out how they are doing and encourage them to pursue their project in a real scenario. Besides that, documentation is performed, generating reports and experience communication such as testimonials.
This last stage is the evaluation, which is to find out more about the attendees’ background, compare previous versions and learn from them. Data is analyzed using statistical measures such as mean and frequency, for example, to explain more about the subjects, discuss these results and continue with the conclusions. 3.2
Mostly all of the tools used in this paper were supplied by [
Also, we are using three samples of subjects that came from three SWWE, one from 2018, which was first edition named Location 1 with 20 participants; from 2019 we have one second edition named Location 2 with 29 and third edition, Location 3 with 41 participants. The ages of the subjects ranged between 18 and 58 years.
The registration form had eight (8) questions between general information and their job and motivation, as we detail in Table 1. Although there is only one question pertaining to motivation, each subject can select up to five reasons for attending the event. On the other hand, we use location to identify the different editions of SWWE.
Some interesting matters found in this paper, the fact after each edition the organizers evaluated the variables according to aspects related to actual trends in female studies and proceed on updating questions after the first release. As of that three more variables were added, that were considered essential to measure and helped deepen the study of the participants in following SWWE editions.
After collecting the significant data, the information of all three editions was organized and cleaned for the analysis using Microsoft Excel dynamic tables. The visualization planned was with the most appropriate tables and charts, with the intention that readers could understanding the reasons that motivated the girls and women to register as participants of SWWE. Participants were summoned to present from 1 to 6 reasons, of these we decided to analyze the first reasons of all the participants. Additionally, qualitative observations were added to the evaluation of the female participants.
The main object of this paper is to share the experiences that organizers of SWWE
in Latin America had, during the process of inspiring women to create start-ups and
learn the exciting world of entrepreneurs. Looking through the organizing team from
a gender point of view in the Fig. 1, we can see that the female representation in all
roles has been consistent; on the other hand, the male representation was mainly in the
mentors and staff roles noting a substantial decrease in mentor roles. The male
representation in the first edition, 75% were mentors and in later editions decreased
even more, to 33%. In all these topics related to gender, something that we have to
make notice is that we cannot disregard the male presence in these types of activities;
it is safe to understand that mixed gender wisely controlled in the teamwork structure,
increases the effectivity of the outcome [
In further sections we will be appointing to initial inquiries made at the beginning of this paper, which are related to female participants and their cue motivations. 4.1
The age group with the most female representation in all three locations were 25 to 34 years and 24 years and less; the least representation was in age group of 55 and more, as you may see in Fig 2. This persistence tells us something about the age group that is more constant and could considered when building the entrepreneur community.
On the other had we can see in Location 2 also showed how the number of female participants in the age group 25 to 34 increased. Another characteristic of the analyzed participants was the profession they performed, as we can see in Fig. 3. The trend professions of participants observed was more variable; in Location 1, 85% were industry experts (people who had technical knowledge of ICT), 5% developers and 10% businesswomen. These numbers in Location 3 showed a better representation in professions, with businesswomen (39%), industry experts (29%), developers (17%), and designers (15%), this showed how participants of different sectors are mostly interested in seeking to learn as entrepreneurs.
Another characteristic that was analyzed in Table 2 was the ethnicity. Even though
one third were non respondents (DNR), it is important to identify by profession, the
ethnic group representation. These are some matters related to under representation
within entrepreneurs studied by [
In Table 2, we can also notice that fifty-six (56) were from the Latin group, and four
(4) between Asian and Native. The 30 non respondents were not from any of the
previous groups and could be considered as mixed-race, knowing the ethnic complexity
of Latin American countries [
Reviewing the overall female motivations, we can list the four most common
motivations that were reported: establish a startup, training, networking and learning
new skills; this tells us further knowledge, that there is an important female interest,
which can be enhanced offering more qualification, more professional contact, more
role models, more computer skills development, This last is always more difficult from
genders point of view, because in computer or ICT area, women need confidence as in
[
As the participants had the opportunity to express up to six responses in motivations
items, we studied only the first motivations according to [
Table 3 shows the results of first motivation registered by the participants, that we consider important identifying. 54.2% of the assistants with bachelor’s degree and the 29.2 % with master's were motivated to participate to establish a startup; three quarter Note: EsS: Establish a Startup, LNS: Learn New Skills, MaCF: Meet a Co-founder, EE: Entrepreneur Education Source: From the authors of those with master’s degree were interested in meeting a co-founder, while the rest were of bachelor’s degree. On the other hand, about receiving entrepreneur education, the most motivated party were those with bachelor’s degrees (50%) followed by master’s (43%).Continuing with the profession category, for businesswomen and industry experts, the motivations that stood out the most was establishing a startup, meeting a co-founder and receiving entrepreneur education.
The female motivation reflected by the average of reasons to participate, designers with master (6) and developers with doctorate (3) degree showed more reasons for assisting to SWWE. See Fig.4.
Being an entrepreneur is the first step to a startup, and participants' attitude led us to believe it, their life changed in 54 hours, Fig 5. After their training, most of the participants get involved as volunteers in future editions presenting experiences, meeting other entrepreneurs, finding new business opportunities and allies. They even begin becoming part of local entrepreneur communities such as “Canal de Empresarias” (local program that provides training and mentoring for women) and AMPYME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Authority), a government institution that provides legal and economic support for small businesses.
The organizers of SWWE are looking forward to help women through the journey of entrepreneurship, teaching the know-how from well-known personalities in the country, sharing all the tools they need to carry out their projects.
As a consequence of these startup weekends, the juries select the three most prominent projects, but all participants receive prizes, such as domain names, credits from several software and cloud solution providers such as Google Cloud, which is a way to motivate people to attend.
Entrepreneurship is a transformation machine and forming a startup community requires the involvement of many actors, such as companies, government, and most important, entrepreneurs. The greatest satisfaction is represented in the number of participants of each edition, that increases its number since there is more awareness among women in the entrepreneur environment; more are people getting involved, wanting to learn the know-how to undertake their ideas in a safe environment, and discover their business potential. When diverse people meet for a weekend to start something that can contribute for the country, there is always inspiration before and after these startup weekends. Future actions should be assessed such as: including females from different ethnicity, women with low income or with a disability, increase the male representation as mentor, and why not as jury, increasing the participation of female at university level that can guarantee a new vision, after academic studies as businesswomen. There is the possibility of analyzing the female confidence, their capacity of risk-taking, and defining in there is a positive relationship with gender. The fact is that the knowledge obtained can support the government policies to sponsor new initiatives, to can keep inspiring any outcome that can boost stronger, diverse, and longlasting female startups.
We would like to thank all the girls and women that were encouraged to take the first step as an entrepreneur, through these three editions of Startup Weekend Women, the sponsors: Panama City of Knowledge, Canal de Empresarias and AMPYME, organizers, mentors, facilitators, juries, other actors, and most of all female participants, whose interests are portrayed in this paper.
Goals,
Available: