Diversity wins

Gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, skin colour or physical and mental ability has no bearing on setting up a successful company. It’s about courage, ideas and talent! At the same time, it is the uniqueness in diversity that plays a decisive role.

Society faces a wide range of economic, ecological and social challenges. We believe that these challenges can only be met with consciously diverse entrepreneurial perspectives. An important first step towards a more diverse startup culture is to recognise and encourage the potential of female founders. This way, we can ensure that different perspectives are fully reflected in Lower Saxony’s future startup teams.

The proportion of female startup founders in Lower Saxony is 20 percent. Compared to the national average, that’s not bad, but there’s still more to be done. There are many reasons for the low proportion: Women still encounter classic role prejudice and do not conform to the stereotype of a successful entrepreneur. This diminishes the motivation to set up a business and reduces acceptance in the startup ecosystem. There is great potential in mixed gender teams and they have been proven to be more successful. Women are still also underrepresented in the STEM subjects which are typical for new business startups. Gender bias also hampers women with additional challenges in the already difficult process of attracting venture capital. There are hurdles in the startup process that still need to be challenged.

Our goal is to break through the stereotype for success in entrepreneurial thinking and action, to make more women visible as role models and to establish a gender-sensitive funding approach. We want to conceptualise and implement startup research and funding broadly to initiate and support the development of business models for sustainable innovations.