“Women represent the largest disruptive force in business — and the business world is unprepared. Currently, women are the largest unserved market in business as a result of coded patriarchy — the assumption of male as default and exclusion of female perspectives in nearly every domain. Put very simply, most of the structures, design, technology, and products we interact with are designed with a male as the default.
This has led to an echo chamber in the business environment that has created the largest unaddressed market in business. This market has been largely ignored for decades by the mostly male-led companies and investment teams who function as gatekeepers to capital, and are unable to see opportunities outside of their lived experiences.”
– Danielle Kayembe, The Rise of the Female-Driven Economy
Those words have haunted, inspired and excited me from the first time I read them a couple of years ago. Thankfully, Jamaican women, Caribbean Women, Black America Women, African Women have started to challenge the status quo and change things. “We are seeing the rise of women-centered innovation: products and services designed for women by women, based on the pain points women experience in daily life.” We are seeing the rise of women-driven businesses — from those who’ve found riches in niches to those who are focused on making their first $1billion.
A shift is definitely happening and it’s all leveraging the powerful and disruptive force of technology. It represents a massive opportunity to identify, support, nurture and invest in women-run companies. And I’m so here for it.
As a woman in tech for over 15 years, having launched my first startup in the late 90s, being employee #8 at a venture-backed American Digital Media Dotcom, co-founding an online ad network, a pre-facebook online niche Caribbean community, and an interactive agency before it was sexy- has given me a bunch of amazing experiences and a particular perspective about tech-driven business.
The question, I am always left asking though is this — where is the f*ck-u-ability we need from our women? Being a badass is not just a hashtag or an Instagram fashion statement — it requires an unprecedented level of risk-taking, fearlessness, resilience and pissing off a bunch of people along the way, that may leave you standing alone at times. We need more women starting tech-driven business…more women leveraging digital to grow their businesses.
Additionally, having kickstarted the Jamaican tech startup community in 2007, producing and hosting over 150 Caribbean tech events; blogged about Caribbean Tech for 15 years; served on government boards and development programmes focused on Caribbean tech entrepreneurs -on many occasions, I was one of few women, the sole black woman and one of the few Caribbean women in too many rooms. That has to change. Having more women leveraging tech, innovative thinking in business is crucial to the rise of the Caribbean Digital Economy. There’s a lot more work to do. And it’s become somewhat of a personal mission for me.
So let me say this unapologetically, Caribbean Innovation cannot happen in a sustainable, impactful and profitable way without women entrepreneurs of all stripes. And the Caribbean Digital Economy will miss the mark if governments and businesses, refuse to leverage data and trends on women — their roles, pain points and the digital and consumer trends they drive to connect the dots and decide future products and services on every single level.
Cheers to International Women’s Month.