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Symposium - Women in entrepreneurship & regional innovation


  • Communitech 151 Charles St W #100 Kitchener, ON Canada (map)

Join AGE-WELL Workpackage 7.2 DRiVE as we host a highly-anticipated symposium relating to women innovators and entrepreneurs in a regional context being held over two days from June 15-16, 2017. This event will feature international speakers each day, and a day that will be dedicated to a deep dive into the health and agetech sectors to examine issues such as why women make up approximately 70% of the medical and health services workforce and only 4% of healthcare companies have women CEOs.

See the full Agenda:   https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jRzlnWQU7_M2mDyMaaYcIjawEnBTfTpyJPvm_aqxKm4/edit?usp=sharing

A few of the daily highlights include:

Day 1 (June 15th) will focus on the latest research in women’s entrepreneurship and innovation, and will feature international contributors such as Dr. Susan Marlow (University of Nottingham, UK), a prolific author in areas related to gender and entrepreneurial financing, Dr. Shima Barakat (University of Cambridge, UK), and Dr. Tatiana Manolova (Babson College, U.S). Other distinguished international contributors include Dr Silke Tegtmeier (Denmark) and Dr. Kerstin Ettl (Germany), as well as Danielle Brewin Graham (Fierce Founders, Communitech), and Jen Moss (CEO of Plasticity) from the Waterloo region.

Day 2 (June 16th) we will do a ‘deep sectoral dive’ and will focus on the health and agetech industry where open innovation and entrepreneurship lags other industries generally, and remains systematically gendered. Rather than scratch our heads we will actively engage in dialog around how better to deliver inclusive and accessible regional support for all innovation and entrepreneurship. Our speakers include Dr. Barbara Orser (University of Ottawa) speaking about policy to support women’s innovation at the federal and provincial levels, and will present a case study of the innovative and entrepreneurial activity that created a novel women’s health clinic. Dr. Anne Snowdon (University of Windsor) will present on innovative practices that expedite market adoption of new technologies in health systems, and Dr. Judith Sixsmith (University of Dundee)will address women’s work in adding and tech innovation, to name a few.

Contact Dr. Josephine McMurray for registration or media inquiries.