Supernovas: to bring more women into the entrepreneurship ecosystem

EIT Food, EIT Manufacturing and EIT Urban Mobility join forces in SUPERNOVAS to bring more women into the entrepreneurship ecosystem. The EIT is proud to empower woman-led start-ups, supporting women to access early-stage funding and inspire role models across the sector.

Supernovas is a joint EIT Innovation Community activity that promotes an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem with more women shaping the available innovations in the market.

It will deliver 4 activities:

• Startup Stairway: Identifying start-ups and scale-ups from high-tech or deep-tech fields and match them with young women from STEAM careers. We want to expose them to a startup experience early in their careers, in order to inspire them and foster their entrepreneurial spirit.
• Rocket up:   Support entrepreneurs to entry a new European market with a solid strategy and local validation of the product and service. The goal is to have more women entrepreneurs growing and getting funded.
• Women2Invest: We aim to help women with STEAM University studies start their careers in venture investment by training them in the fundamentals of this profession and matching them with investors (venture capital, corporate venture capital or corporate venturing units) for an internship opportunity.

• Mentoring for women leaders: offers EIT community women access to a broad network, mentoring, coaching and training opportunities to take their managerial and leadership skills to the next level.

We want to do this using a transversal approach that focuses on:

• Awareness-raising

• Capacity building

• Connecting present and future women leading the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

It also articulates a support system for women to enter and scale positions in the ecosystem, while at the same time, opening up the scope of roles that need to be more populated with women. All in all, we want to help participants in this programme to gather financial support, provide them with information and education recommendations and create networking opportunities.