Local Competition ‘Pays It Forward’ by Supporting Female Entrepreneurship
During the years, headlines have been full of stories on the gender imbalance in the entrepreneurship and tech world, with men dominating leadership roles. For all the strides that women have made in starting businesses, a massive divide still exists between male and women founders. Today, there’s an abundance of groups, programs, networks, and platforms designed to encourage and boost female entrepreneurship.
Enter WIN Lab. Created by the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL) at Babson College, the Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab provides female entrepreneurs with an inspiring community and a rigorous, experiential process that catalyzes innovative thinking and enables them to successfully scale their businesses. Earlier this year, alongside 18 other entrepreneurs, Imalac participated and won a pitch competition.
The top three entrepreneurs from the WIN Lab program were invited to present their business models to key leaders in the industry who made up the judging panel. Imalac pitched alongside two other great, female-owned companies, Luxe Fete, an event planning and design studio, as well as Lean Orb, a company focusing on biodegradable food service packaging and catering supplies.
Company founders and mother-daughter team, Noreen Sablotsky and Rachael Kish, participated in this eight-month accelerator program because they thought it was a great opportunity to advance themselves as entrepreneurs with a well respected entrepreneurial college setting the curriculum, as well as the local support that WIN Lab receives from the community.
What we found to be common especially amongst female entrepreneurs is that we often think the world is on our shoulders and that we have to do it all. Thankfully, programs like WIN Lab not only provide the tools and resources to further develop and advance businesses, but create an ecosystem of passionate entrepreneurs that ‘pay it forward’, igniting the true spirit of entrepreneurship.
To learn more about Babson’s WIN Lab, visit their website. To learn more about Imalac, visit https://imalac.com.