Founding Women

Founding Women is a book spotlighting African Female founders who are building technology businesses across Africa and the Diaspora.

Our goal is to create visible role models to inspire young African women to reach their full potential as innovators & tech leaders

Young African women do not often get to see themselves represented in the tech space. It’s difficult to aspire to what you cannot see. This makes it difficult more for young African women to enter the tech space thus increasing the diversity and gender gaps.

Furthermore, female tech founders face significant barriers in setting up their businesses. Only 2.19% of global venture capital goes to women-led startups with a mere 0.1% going to startups led by black female founders.

The Founding Women book will share the inspiring stories of African women who are overcoming the odds to build successful businesses in tech.  This will highlight them as role models to inspire young African women to join the technology sector. 

The book will also provide a useful resource for aspiring female founders in need of practical entrepreneurial advice and tips on navigating the tech space as a female founder.

Furthermore, proceeds from sales of the book will go towards our entrepreneurship accelerator #HerFutureAfrica which supports young African female founders to kick-start their businesses.

To inspire young aspiring African female founders by highlighting role models they can relate too. Interviews will cover actionable advice from successful female founders such as how to start, grow and overcome specific challenges as a female founder in the tech space. We plan to distribute free copies of the eBook to 200 young aspiring female founders in the first year. We also aim to raise £10,000 through books sales to go towards our women’s startup accelerator #HerFutureAfrica. The book will also impact the African female founders we interview by amplifying their voices and raising their profile globally.

Track downloads of the eBook by young women in Africa - 200 young aspiring female entrepreneurs in Africa receive a free copy of the eBook

Track online social media engagement and media coverage - 15 African female founders have their profile raised globally and receive further media coverage off the back of the book

Track amount raised through our crowdfund, fundraising event and other book sales channels - Raise £10,000 through book sales for our African female entrepreneurs business accelerator

Founding Women will be the first book bringing together the stories of African tech founders. This book will send a powerful message and we hope will inspire millions of young women across Africa and the diaspora who do often get to see themselves represented in this way. We will use technology particularly in the distribution of the eBook to young women in Africa who will access it on their mobile phones.

Using human design principles we carried out a survey of over 450 young women between the ages of 18 and 35 across 21 African cities  which showed that showed that 75% of them regularly accessed the internet via a mobile phone. 

Based on our findings above, to make the book accessible to young women in Africa we will be making the book available to them in a mobile friendly digital version. Also to ensure cost is not a barrier for those who cannot afford it, we are offering a free digital copies of the book for every book sold.

Also mentioned, the book will act as a tool to  help fundraise for entrepreneurship accelerator which is helping to prepare the next generation of African female tech founders. 

Revenue will come from:

• Sales of the book
• Contributions to our crowdfund
• Grants and corporate sponsorships.

A limited budget for marketing and promotion - we believe this project will resonate with many people but lack the resource to promote as well as we would like.

We also need support with introductions and links to potential corporate partners and funders

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/foundingwomen-entrepreneurship-innovation/x/9347466

https://twitter.com/africatbn

https://www.facebook.com/AfricaTBN/

We would love connect with and share our work with the like-minded individuals in the community solver community.

We also need mentors to support the young women we work with to develop their technology based social enterprises using human centred design tools.

• Cambridge Social Ventures
• Comic Relief - Common Ground Initiative
• Innovate UK
• Addleshaw Goddard

She Leads Africa

Women in Tech Africa