On March 8, 2018 we celebrated International Women's Day. Now, more than ever, there's a strong call-to-action to press forward and progress gender parity. There's a strong call to #PressforProgress motivating and uniting friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive.
In a recent report on women entrepreneurs and innovation completed by the Beacon Agency, Government of Canada, Carleton University and BMO Financial Group, key facts and trends were identified on how important women entrepreneurs are to our economy and communities.
For example, did you know that women-led businesses today represent 50% of all new businesses? (BDC, 2017). In addition, among all small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), 47% are entirely or partly owned by women (Statistics Canada, 2012).
In celebration of International Women's Day, we are very excited to announce our new partnership with BDC as a member of Women’s Enterprise Organizations of Canada (WEOC) to better support women entrepreneurs.
The agreement adds on to BDC’s commitments to support women entrepreneurs, namely new targets of $1.4 billion in lending to women-led businesses by 2021 and $200 million in investments in women-led technology firms.
Read the full release here.
