Business Engagement¶
Engaging in SheMakes¶
Business engagement activities aim at testing business concepts of future women entrepreneurs (coming from Fabricademy or via the Labs network) and creating routes for them to start working with businesses.
The idea, with the two iterations of the Shemakes.eu program, is to identify:
1. three possible start-up opportunities
2. three possible new business lines for existing companies
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Start-up opportunities can be defined as actions that will enable startups to launch or develop. (See the Challenge Solving Workshop supporting the start-up called Shing.)
- For instance, MAKE lab organized a Challenge Solving Workshop in July 2021, in which a startup called Shing was mentored by Le Slip Français company. This workshop enabled her to develop her communication strategy and win contacts within the T&C sector
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New business lines refer to both items (products, collections, innovations - materials, processes) and collaborations (exchange of knowledge, co-creation) between an innovator and existing businesses, or between individuals with complementary skills. Business engagement actions support women innovators (designers, entrepreneurs) to develop lines within existing companies.
The SheMakes Labs have the role of supporting the smooth and fruitful development of collaborations that help the women innovators of our own networks end up with start-up opportunities or new business lines, highlighting real routes to jobs for women with alternative education. However, all labs start from different starting points when it comes to working towards these possible start-ups and business lines: Some labs know with whom they could work with locally on this business engagement axis. Some need to first map out their (possible) ecosystem and businesses they can work with, but do run Fabricademy already. Some labs have experience with coaching innovators, some are experienced in launching an entrepreneurial project. Different activities were settled to start engaging with businesses and support innovators in the development of their ideas into entrepreneurial projects or business lines. Below you can find a double entry table to identify relevant activities to organize depending on the innovators and business actors labs are connected with:
The innovators (horizontally) and business actors (vertically) you are usually connected with
| Students | Entrepreneurs | Creatives / Makers | |
| Factories and/or Fablabs | Factory visits | Entrepreneurial ideas contest | Entrepreneurial ideas contest |
| **Companies (startups, SMEs, medium and big companies, startup incubators) | Bootcamp & Hackathon | Hackathon; Challenge solving workshop; Entrepreneurial ideas contest | Entrepreneurial ideas contest |
| Experienced professionals and /or entrepreneurs and/or creatives | Meetings and interviews | Challenge solving workshop & Mentoring sessions |
note: these categories can be made into buttons
like this: