Part of the ATHENA initiative – Approaches To valorise the High ENtrepreneuriAl potential of migrant women to contribute to their social and economic integration* – Digital Leadership Institute organized on 24th of April 2022 a Lunch & Learn session , followed by a Peer-learning training for professionals and business support organizations working with migrant women to discuss about how to act and support the shift towards a cultural and entrepreneurial ecosystem that embraces the diversity and added value that migrant women entrepreneurs bring to the market, and, overall, to their host communities.
The session was addressed to professionals providing business support services to migrant or migrant-background women entrepreneurs or who aspire to be entrepreneurs in Belgium, both within public or private entities, as well as freelance or working in the non-profit organizations with the aim of building their capacities to deliver the services of entrepreneurial support by sharing knowledge and experiences on a variety of topics that cover both administrative and business practices for third-country nationals, but also social and cultural aspects.
The event began with the discussion of the importance of cultural diversity and the entrepreneurial business ecosystem in Belgium, this part brought forward two successful migrant women entrepreneurs to share their stories. The first speaker, Sana Afouaiz, the CEO and founder of the Womenpreneur and with Moroccan background , shared the story of starting her non-profit organization, with the mission of advancing women’s place on the entrepreneurial scene, technology, innovation & society in Belgium and in the MENA region.
Speaking about her own struggles to start a business in the fashion industry, Anna Boroshok, co-founder of Silk and Cotton Global, highlighted the importance of having a support network of other women entrepreneurs when you are coming from a diverse cultural background that can resonate and support with the challenges you face – be it administrative or cultural – as they might have experienced them as well. For this reason, Anna founded the Fearless Female Founders community for women entrepreneurs, based in Brussels.
Copyright: Digital Leadership Institute
Following this discussion, the peer-learning training for professionals and business support organizations working with migrant women aimed at going more in depth into the opportunities for these professionals to improve their skills and services offered to this specific target group.
The first aspect discussed with the participants was regarding the Cultural diversity and the entrepreneurial business ecosystem in Belgium, facilitated by Lien Warmenbol from #SheDIDIt, regarding the importance of being aware of the cultural differences that women from diverse background might experience .
Copyright: Digital Leadership Institute
Shifting perspective, trainer Sana Afouaiz facilitated a conversation on the psychological preparedness of migrant women to uptake entrepreneurship. In these discussion, certain aspects were identified as problematic for this target group, such as of marginalization, assimilation, and separation, but provided specific tips that professionals can use to support integration and enable multi-cultural needs: through active listening, creating a safe space in order for the person to feel welcomed, unleashing talents, providing targeted training, ensuring mental support and be able to defend the rights of these migrant women entrepreneurs.
Copyright: Digital Leadership Institute
Linking the previous two topics, Katja Legisa from the Digital Leadership Institute lead the discussion on understanding stereotypes and their impact on women entrepreneurs, emphasizing how important it is for professionals working in supporting roles to know how to identify and tackle the issues involving stereotypes and to be conscious of their own and shared biases.
Copyright: Digital Leadership Institute
Finally, considering the fact that access to finance is considered to be one of the most important challenges for women entrepreneurs in general, coach Jasper Verreydt gave an overview of diverse funding opportunities women can access depending on the development stage of their businesses, including: bootstrapping, crowdfunding and crowdlending, but also grant offered by the different regions of Belgium to SMEs.
Copyright: Digital Leadership Institute
Overall, the discussions among the participating professionals pointed to the fact that there is the need for a better cooperation between the different service providers and existing organizations that work specifically with this target group, and that indeed the cultural – and, many times, the psychological – awareness represent extremely important factors that should be part of the continuous development and growth of organizations when dealing with migrant women.
The Lunch & Learn session and the peer-learning training for for professionals and business support organizations working with migrant women was organized as part of the Athena project – Approaches To valorise the High ENtrepreneuriAl potential of migrant women to contribute to their social and economic integration – a two-year project funded by the AMIF Program. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the economic and social integration of migrant women in the EU society by improving the services of entrepreneurship support oriented to migrant women and creating a specific entrepreneurial path for them.The project is implemented by a consortium of six partners and covers five European countries , and will directly benefit a 210 migrant women, it will increase the capacities of more than 35 professionals working in entrepreneurship support roles, it will create synergies with several organisations and it will finally intend to influence policies through a series of policy recommendations. Here you can find more about the project: https://athenaproject.net/
On 5 May 2022 online, the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute and EU Women20 Delegation to the G20 jointly organized an official side-event of the UN Science, Technology and Innovation Forum on the SDGs (“STI Forum”), on the topic of “Digital Equity for Women’s Economic Agency.” The event addressed the intersecting priorities of closing the gender digital divide and promoting women’s financial independence as economic actors—namely as entrepreneurs, experts and leaders in critical STEM sectors, especially Technology—as an explicit objective of international development policy and as the surest path to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Key recommendations gleaned from the gathering include the following:
Prioritize development funding and programs with an explicit focus on closing the digital gender divide — i.e. through digital skills programs and actions to increase access to and use of technology and infrastructure, for girl and women beneficiaries;
Prioritize development funding and programs with an explicit focus on increasing women’s economic agency through technology, e.g. by supporting women as entrepreneurs in tech-driven and tech-enabled startup, and through paid apprenticeship programs with job placement for women in emerging technology fields such as AI, cybersecurity, big data, machine learning, etc.;
Increase capacity-building for the fore-mentioned activities by supporting best practice-sharing, networking building and by promoting opportunities to replicate and scale successful regional programs tackling “digital equity and women’s economic agency” in all directions and across global geographies (North-South, South-North, North-North, South-South);
Increase structural support and promote a healthy ecosystem that supports women as independent economic actors by addressing underlying inequities women face as entrepreneurs and as leaders in digital fields, including by: i) setting ambitious gender-specific development program goals for reach, participation and program success; ii) collecting and sharing gender- and sex-disaggregated program data; iii) ear-marking development funds with the specific mission to close the gender digital gap for women’s economic empowerment;
Take concrete action to ensure women’s equal access to and use of: i) Digital/ICT training programs and related resources, including acceleration, incubation and (IT) leadership-training programs; ii) entrepreneurship finance and investment, especially venture capital, and other resources (mentorship, coaching, financial literacy); and iii) distribution channels and supply chains, including for international trade and e-commerce, with specific targets for women’s equal participation in public sector procurement;
Build and deploy programs that specifically focus on increasing technology leadership–as entrepreneurs, experts and leaders–by mature women, women in transition, migrant women and women living in rural areas.
Panel interventions reflected a broad and ambitious spectrum of key voices promoting Digital Equity and Women’s Economic Agency from around the world, including:
Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director General for Social and Human Services, UNESCO (video message)
Virginia Littlejohn, Co-head of US Delegation to the G20/Women20 & Global Coordinator, W20 Women Entrepreneurs Act Initiative (WE Act)
Tamara Dancheva, Senior Manager, International Relations at GSMA & EU Delegate to the G20/Women20
The Digital Equity event was streamed live on the STI Forum platform and DLI YouTube channel, and joined remotely by virtual participants. It took the form of a panel discussion moderated by Cheryl Miller, DLI Director and Co-head of EU G20 Women20 Delegation, with support from Loredana Bucseneanu, DLI Development Director, and key G20 Women20 partners including: Katharina Miller, Co-head of EU Delegation; Tamara Dancheva, EU Delegate; and Virginia Littlejohn, Co-head of US Delegation.
A video of the event is available here (Passcode: FaPH3Yf), and inquiries about this and future events may be directed to DLI.
Subject: Training services to support the implementation of professional training for an organisation working with migrant women and migrant women entrepreneurs
General Introduction: Training services will be organised in the framework of the ATHENA Project – Approaches To valorisethe High EntrepreneuriAl potential of migrant women. The objective of the ATHENA project is to contribute to the economic and social integration of migrant women in the EU society by improving the services of entrepreneurship support to migrant women and creating a specific entrepreneurial path for them in the regional contexts where the project activities are developed.
Needs:
Two different trainings will be organised by the Digital Leadership Institute (DLI), within the context of the ATHENA Project:
1. Training for professionals working with migrant women: The objective of this training is to improve the services provided by the public or private organizations to migrant women on entrepreneurship. The aim is to build capacities of organizations professionals working with migrant women, with additional ad hoc knowledge that will help and better equip them to deliver the services of support for migrant women on entrepreneurship path. The professionals from the organizations working with entrepreneurs will be trained in the different topics that have been identified as missing or weak by the needs and demands of the migrant women. The topics are: Administrative and legal issues, access to finance, psychological preparedness of a migrant women, cultural diversity and sensitivity. DLI is looking for an organisation or independent professional who can provide a lecture on one or more of the above-mentioned topics. The training for professionals working with migrant women will last half a day.
2. Training for migrant women: The objective of this bootcamp is to provide (migrant) women with the skills, resources and access to expertise necessary to inspire them to take up entrepreneurship. The overall aim is to contribute to the economic and social integration of migrant women in the EU society by improving the services of entrepreneurship support oriented to migrant women and accompanying them on the challenging entrepreneurial path.
Each training will address three sections, each providing a specific set of skills: Legal skills, business skills, digital skills.
Legal skills: Administrative and legal overview, access to finance/ Belgian founding schemes, cultural diversity in the business environment.
Business skills: Vision & mission identification, Business design, strategic planning
Digital Skills: Digital tools to manage your accounting, building an e-commerce website.
The bootcamp will last three half-days.
Requirements:
Training for professionals working with migrant women – four independent sessions are foreseen under the following topics:
1. Administrative and legal advice: the aim is to give an overview of the administrative and legal requirements the migrant women wishing to become entrepreneurs need to go undergo. This advice is to to make it easier to deal with the administrative requirements to start/run a business. Suggested length of the session is 1h.
2. Access to finance: Part of setting up and running a business requires dealing with legal questions such as registering the enterprise, obtaining permits, filling out tax reports and others. For a migrant who has no previous experience in the area and is also not used to the administrative system and institutions in the host country, this might be a significant obstacle and a migrant entrepreneur may face greater difficulties than a native counterpart in navigating regulations and administrative red tape. Migrant entrepreneurs may also need specific advice regarding immigration regulations (for example concerning permit renewal and status change). It consists of direct provision of loans and other (micro) credit instruments, provision of facilities where starting the business, or support with the application process to obtain a loan from another institution. Suggested length of the session is 1h.
3. Psychological preparedness of a migrant women Migrant workers show an increase in the incidence of serious, psychotic, anxiety, and post-traumatic disorders due to a series of socio-environmental variables, such as loss of social status, discrimination, and separations from the family. This causes low life conditions, which is also due to marginalization from the social context and strenuous work. It is therefore essential to increase knowledge among professionals working with migrants about this issue and promote wellbeing for this vulnerable job category.Suggested length of the session is 30 to 40 min.
4. Cultural sensitivity in business: Migrants often lack familiarity with the (business) environment and the market where they start the business. Similar is true to the professionals working with migrants that not always are prepared to deal with diversities. Cultural sensitivity training may help to understand what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior toward people based on their race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. This can help to avoid situations leading to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Suggested length of the session is 30 to 40 min.
Training for migrant women: The bootcamp will be divided in three independent sections, each providing a specific set of topics/skills:
1. Legal skills: the aim is to provide all the information a migrant woman needs in order to set up and run a business in Belgium:
Administrative and legal overview – the aim is to give an overview of the administrative and legal requirements the migrant women wishing to become entrepreneurs need to go undergo. This advice is to make it easier to deal with the administrative requirements to start/run a business. Suggested length of the session is 1h.
Access to finance/ Belgian founding schemes; Part of setting up and running a business requires dealing with legal questions such as registering the enterprise, obtaining permits, filling out tax reports and others. For a migrant who has no previous experience in the area and is also not used to the administrative system and institutions in the host country, this might be a significant obstacle and a migrant entrepreneur may face greater difficulties than a native counterpart in navigating regulations and administrative red tape. Migrant entrepreneurs may also need specific advice regarding immigration regulations (for example concerning permit renewal and status change). It consists of direct provision of loans and other (micro) credit instruments, provision of facilities where starting the business, or support with the application process to obtain a loan from another institution. Suggested length of the session is 1h.
Intercultural diversity in the business environment – Migrants often lack familiarity with the (business) environment and the market where they start the business. Cultural sensitivity training may help to understand what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior toward people based on their race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. Suggested length of the session is 1h to 1h30.
2. Business skills: This set of supporting measures consists of training on matters that are related to starting and conducting a business. When they have no pre-migration business experience, or they do not have previous business training, migrant entrepreneurs often need to improve their business skills. Group business support normally consist of training sessions to develop a set of those skills, such as how to develop a business plan, accountancy skills, and marketing strategies, vision & mission identification, product identification, business design, strategic planning. Suggested length of the session 4h.
3. Digital Skills: The aim is to provide and teach how to use different digital tools that can help to set up and run a business. These can include the following:
How to manage the accounting by using different digital tools. Suggested session length 1h to 1h30.
How to build an e-commerce website. Suggested session length 1h to 1h30.
Digital marketing by using specific tech tools. Suggested session length 1h to 1h30.
The trainings will be carried out in English, but the trainer will be asked to share the training material in advance so that this can be translated in the participants languages by DLI.
Timing: The training for professionals will be carried out in person in Brussels on 24 May2022, from 2 pm to 6 pm CET. The training for migrant women will be carried out in person in Brussels on 17, 18 & 19 June 2022, from 9am to 1 pm CET.
How to Respond: Any organisation or independent professional can propose to deliver one or more of the noted sessions. The service will be remunerated per the proposed offering and based on mutually agreed terms.
To submit a proposal, please send a document in PDF format, maximum five single-spaced A4 pages, plus Annexes (CVs, past project experiences, draft curricula, etc.) which includes:
Target training session(s)
Description of the proposed training, including topics to be covered in the session;
Price, including time (quoted in person days) and materials, plus VAT, and validity term;
Confirmation of availability for training dates; and
Background information for the contracting person/organisation, including name, legal address, VAT number, etc.
Annex: ZIP file including CV/Bio of expert/s, previous project experience, references, etc.
Each Proposal with Annex should be sent to the following email address: dliiorg(at)gmail(dot)com
Deadline for proposal submission is 10 May 2022 at midnight CET.
The DLI Board are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out more below about our outreach activities in Spring 2022, including a 17 March #BreaktheBias event celebrating International Women’s Day. For upcoming events by DLI and our partners please visit here, and have a look at our calendar.
*Entrepreneurship and Art powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
5 January 2022 – Coding Over Cocktails Podcast (Online): On 5 January 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined the Coding Over Cocktails Podcast to discuss opportunities presented by the pandemic for organisations to drive inclusive digital transformation.
12 January 2022 – Women Empowerment in Women20 (Online) – In the capacity of Co-head of EU Delegation and Co-chair of the G20 Women20 Italy Digital Equity Working Group, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined the 12 January webinar on the topic of Women Empowerment in Women20: Women20 Recommendations and their adoption in the G20 Leaders’ Declaration. The event was hosted by the outgoing W20 Italy Presidency with participation of the 2022 G20 Indonesia Women20 Presidency.
February 2022 – Staying Global While Staying Home (Online):Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined the February edition of NewComm Global Group‘s Staying Global While Staying Homewebcast to discuss opportunities presented by the recovery for driving inclusive digital transformation.
15 February 2022 – W20 Indonesia Policy Dialogue: Freedom from Discrimination: (Likupang, Indonesia & Online): On 15 February 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined the first policy dialogue side-event of the Indonesia G20 Women20 Presidency on the topic of Freedom from Discrimination: Historical Journey from Japan to Indonesia, taking place online and in Likupang, Indonesia.
8 March 2022 – IWD2022 Women in Diplomacy Luncheon (Brussels): On 8 March 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined a luncheon, hosted by the UK, US and Canadian Embassies to Belgium, to celebrate International Women’s Day 2022 and promote increased participation of women in diplomacy.
17 March 2022 – AWS #BreakTheBias Event (Brussels & Online): On 17 March 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, contributed to the 17 March #BreakTheBias event hosted by Amazon Web Services EMEA, and spoke on the topic of “Overview of Gender Equality in the AI Ecosystem: Where Are We and Where do We Want To Go?“
To browse past activities with DLI and our partners, please click here. Be sure to also visit our calendar, sign up for the DLI Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!
Women-led entrepreneurship can act as an enabler of women’s economic empowerment and gender equality and contribute to the post-COVID economic recovery.
On this important topic, DLI and it’s partners organized an event entitled Moving Forward Support for Women Entrepreneurs on 16 March 2022 at the Residence Palace in Brussels. The event was hybrid, which supported people to attend from a large variety of countries and organisations.
Moving Forward Support for Women Entrepreneurs was organised in the framework of the Move It Forward Plus project (MIF+), an Erasmus Plus-funded project to support organizations working in the field of female digital entrepreneurship by equipping them with tools and strategies to better support aspiring women entrepreneurs. The highlighted “tool” was the Move It Forward female digital starters weekend, a two-day program with the aim of bringing together teen and adult women to provide them with the digital skills, resources and access to expertise necessary to inspire them to take up digital entrepreneurship.
During the event, speakers highlighted the importance of supporting women-led entrepreneurship from different angles and perspectives.
First, Cheryl Miller, DLI Director and Co-head of EU Delegation to the G20 / Women20, dug into why it is important to support women entrepreneurs and what is at stake if this is not done.
The project coordinator, Marina Andrieu from WIDE(Luxembourg) then presented tools and methodologies developed in the MIF + project, and how they can be applied and used for training and mentoring of future digital entrepreneurs.
Next, MIF+ partner organisations, Fundatia Professional (Romania), Led by Her (France), WIDE (Luxembourg), and CTK Rijeka (Croatia), described the specific actions they implemented to support women entrepreneurs and the impact this had in their local communities.
In the final and most heart-warming part of the event, three future women entrepreneurs who are currently enrolled in the MIF+ mentoring program, shared their experiences of why and how they started on their entrepreneurship journey. In each case, they underscored the fact that getting support to develop their project idea—first during the MIF digital starters weekend and afterwards with guidance from a mentor—is what has permitted them to start making their entrepreneurship dreams come true.
5 January 2022 – Coding Over Cocktails Podcast (Online): On 5 January 2022, 
12 January 2022 – Women Empowerment in Women20 (Online) – In the capacity of Co-head of EU Delegation and Co-chair of the G20 Women20 Italy Digital Equity Working Group, 
February 2022 – Staying Global While Staying Home (Online): 
15 February 2022 – W20 Indonesia Policy Dialogue: Freedom from Discrimination: (Likupang, Indonesia & Online): On 15 February 2022, 
8 March 2022 – IWD2022 Women in Diplomacy Luncheon (Brussels): On 8 March 2022, 
17 March 2022 – AWS #BreakTheBias Event (Brussels & Online): On 17 March 2022, 
