Recent data shows that there has been a slow shift in the entrepreneurial landscape and that more women are prepared to put in the hours and do the work to move their businesses from locally concentrated scales to high-growth enterprises.
Professor Natanya Meyer (left), Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Johannesburg and Chairperson of the EDHE Community of Practice for Entrepreneurship Research, spoke at the recent Student Women Economic Empowerment Programme (SWEEP) Economic Activation Workshop. Her presentation, titled The Beauty of Women Entrepreneurs, affirmed that even though women still grapple with diverse challenges, a tide in entrepreneurship was turning in their favour.
SWEEP, an initiative of the Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) Programme, hosted the first in a series of planned workshops from 25 to 27 January 2022, aimed at empowering student women and offering them a safety net of transferrable and practical skills that will inspire them to start their own enterprises while studying. Participants were drawn from the signed-up SWEEP members and more, from South Africa’s public universities. The EDHE programme, mostly funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training, is being implemented and administered in partnership with Universities South Africa.