Ulster Bank is now partnering with three local organisations to fund projects aimed at driving more women toward a career in entrepreneurship.
While the Northern Ireland tech scene has made strides toward gender equality in recent years, the number of women starting their own businesses is still very low across the UK. Ulster Bank's parent company NatWest pledged to create 400,000 female-led businesses by 2025 in response to statistics on this gender disparity in entrepreneurship.
Ulster Bank has now partnered with three organisations in Northern Ireland to promote female entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland. The bank has awarded £20,000 to Young Enterprise, Ulster University and Blick Shared Studios to fund projects aimed at driving more women toward a career in entrepreneurship.
This follows Ulster Bank's first Female Investment Day initiative last year and the success of the ongoing Ulster Bank Accelerator for local businesses and tech startups. The bank hopes that these new partnerships will help reach a broader audience, and will be collaborating with those partners over the next 12 months.
Director of Regional Entrepreneurship Lynsey Cunningham explained the impact that these initiatives can have: "We know from the publication of the Rose Review in 2018 and subsequent studies done in this area that females are still less likely to start their own business than their male counterparts. Estimates show that this untapped potential costs the UK economy £250 billion but it also further cements an unhelpful mindset, especially among young women, that entrepreneurship is not for them."
Source: Written based on press release
