Gender inclusivity in tech startups a strategic imperative: Sadaffe Abid

KARACHI: Gender inclusivity is a strategic imperative if you want to build stronger and robust tech startups, said CEO and founder of CIRCLE, a social enterprise that works towards women's empowerment and inclusion through technology, leadership development and entrepreneurship.

“Women bring different strengths, capabilities and experiences to the table,” CEO Sadaffe Abid told Business Recorder in an interview.

“Women-led startups get lower funding. This is a global trend. There are biases and barriers to access for them.

“However, this trend must change for the benefit of the startup landscape.”

Interview with Sadaffe Abid, CEO & Founder - CIRCLE Pakistan

According to the European Women in Venture Capital report, in 2020, women's startups received 3% of investments. In 2021, the amount dropped to 2%.

In Pakistan, despite a record 2021 that saw startups attract roughly $350 million, funding to women-founded startups stood at a meagre $4 million.

“Their share in the overall deals and amount declined to 3.8% and 1.2%, respectively, during 2021, showing that despite more capital flowing into Pakistan, women-founded startups continued to get less than a proportionate share,” said Invest2Innovate’s (i2i) Pakistan Entrepreneurship Report 2021 published earlier this year.

Abid said there are various success stories of women-founded startups raising good amounts, but overall access to funds remains hindered to an extent.

“It is critical to leverage the different skills and capabilities to solve complex adaptive challenges facing the world today and build stronger and robust tech startups.”

Her statement comes at a time when female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies are seeing a new record. As of March 2022, there were 74 female CEOs employed at America's 500 highest-grossing companies, up from 41 in June of 2021 and only 7 in 2002.

Earlier this month, Abid also spoke at Web Summit 2022 in Lisbon. She was a part of the Aurora Tech Award team that discussed the issues of gender imbalance in the IT sector.

The Aurora Tech Award is an annual prize for female founders of IT startups whose projects have had the most pronounced impact on development.

According to the Web Summit 2022 Gender Equality Survey, 67% of European women working in IT feel they are underpaid compared to men, and half of them face gender discrimination.

The Web Summit 2022 attracted more than 70 000 participants, more than 2,000 startups, and for the first time over half were women attendees.

Abid said that women must be made part of committees and panels for impactful solutions.

“We need increasing visibility of women in tech and celebrating them. Any committee, panel or high-impact working group that is set up should be diverse and include women so robust solutions can emerge.”