women founders

TechSydney and Tech Ready Women have shared in $80,000 in grants from the City of Sydney aimed at helping them further develop the city’s startup community.

BlueChilli has announced it will be hosting the Australian leg of the Lady Problems hackathon this October, an initiative launched by AngelHack addressing the problems that prevent female entrepreneurship.

Over a hundred women came together to launch new startups across two events this weekend, with Sydney coworking community Fishburners hosting its Female Founders Hackathon and Girl Geek Academy holding its third annual SheHacks event in Melbourne.

The number of female tech startup founders in Australia is growing slowly but steadily, increasing from 16 percent in 2011 to 19 percent in 2013, with only a fifth of these founders coming from a tech background.

Through SheEO, an organisation dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs, Vicki Saunders is asking 1,000 women to commit to ‘An Act of Radical Generosity’ – that is, to donate $1,000 each to create a $1 million fund that will be distributed among 10 women-led ventures.