EnergyLab on the lookout for female founders to take on the Clean Energy sector

 EnergyLab

Leading Australian clean energy accelerator EnergyLab is launching a Women in Clean Energy Fellowship in Melbourne to inspire, educate and support more women to found energy startups. 

The program, run in Melbourne between August and November 2019, will create a defined pathway for female entrepreneurs to start clean energy startups by giving them the skills and knowledge they need to embark on a career in entrepreneurship.

Between 8 to 12 talented women with an interest in entrepreneurship will be selected to benefit from inspirational group mentoring, educational discussions and workshops on startup fundamentals. Throughout the program, fellowship participants will learn a range of skills from how to hatch an idea and find co-founders to how to pitch their startup as well as legal and accounting fundamentals. 

“While the representation of women in the startup ecosystem continues to increase, currently only 28% of founders in Victoria are female, and the numbers of female founders in energy-related startups is even lower! We believe this can be brought up to parity by better preparing female entrepreneurs for the startup journey.” Says Milly Young, EnergyLab Programs Manager.

The free series of nine evening events, starting late August, aims to:

-Increase the founders’ knowledge of the energy sector and up-skill in business fundamentals to prepare them for a successful startup journey

-Connect them with high-profile mentors, hand-picked by EnergyLab for their expertise in the energy sector

-Introduce them to successful female entrepreneurs who can share their journey

-Weave a solid support network by providing a peer group of like-minded female entrepreneurs being at the same stage of their journey.

The fellowship is designed to feed directly into EnergyLab Pre-Acceleration Program and Acceleration Program, to support the entrepreneurs from the idea stage to running an early-stage startup. The program will also run alongside a series of EnergyLab public networking events, panel discussions, and a hackathon to allow the members to leverage more opportunities from the broader startup ecosystem.

“EnergyLab is committed topromoting diversity and gender equality in the clean energy sector. We work hard to put together gender-diverse panels at our events and want to make sure the same gender diversity is seen in our program cohorts. We believe that this program will help achieve that goal by increasing the number of women starting clean energy startups and applying for our programs.” Says James Tilbury, CEO of EnergyLab.

“The fellowship will be piloted in Melbourne to learn and gather insights from our participants, with the hope to expand to other cities in 2020.” Says Milly Young, EnergyLab Programs Manager.

To enter the program, prospective entreprenerus simply need to submit an application on EnergyLab’s website before Tuesday 9 July.