GITEX GLOBAL 2022 Spotlights Start-Ups by Women Entrepreneurs

GITEX GLOBAL 2022, the world's largest technology and startup event, has been actively highlighting female-led startups throughout the week. They have raised new funding and explored how new technologies can be used to close the funding gap compared to male startups.

An online female-led hijab company won $25,000 in the TiE Women Pitch competition run by The Indus Entrepreneurs Dubai (TiE Dubai), from e& Capital, the investment arm of e&. Second place went to Hafsa Qadir, founder of ImInclusive, a digital hub designed to connect motivated people to inclusive workplaces. This start-up received $10,000 from NB Ventures. This year's regional competitions in the MENA region attracted more than 200 applications from women-led companies from 15 countries.

The five finalists were given the opportunity to meet investors from e& Capital and Wamda, as well as access to the GITEX investor lounge at North Star and will receive subsidies for a business license at Dubai's in5 technology hub.

Ashish Panjabi, president of TiE Dubai, said he hoped the competition would set a precedent for more events to highlight outstanding women-led businesses in the region.

Also, the Sharjah Business Women's Council (SBWC) continued to support women entrepreneurs at the world's largest start-up event, North Star Dubai 2022, which has a 'Women in Technology' category with a $10,000 prize for the best female start-up.

In addition, selected members participated in the Supernova Challenge, a $200,000 pitching competition organised in partnership with the world's third-largest SME finance fund.

The first-ever Global DevSlam featured a global investment club aimed at funding women-led, environmentally-focused projects.

Thousand Faces is a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) impact fund that uses green NFTs to invest in four main areas, including women founders, Web3 education programmes, green initiatives such as carbon offsets and conservation projects, and non-profit organisations.

Speaking at the launch, Moojan Asghari, Founder and CEO of Thousand Faces, said:

We are releasing 1,000 NFTs from our bank of 10,000 NFTs today and we are inviting applications. Any project and early-stage start-up anywhere in the world initiated by a female founder or a strong ESG impact can apply.