After the January Breakfast of DELab and the Network of Entrepreneurial Women – a participant's report

Interested in female entrepreneurship and its development opportunities, I was invited by Katarzyna Wierzbowska, president and co-founder of the Women's Entrepreneurship Network foundation, to the January Breakfast of the Women's Entrepreneurship Network for female students of the University of Warsaw. This is a project organized by the Women's Entrepreneurship Foundation for female students and graduates of the University of Warsaw with the support of DELab of the University of Warsaw. The breakfasts are held every month at DELab UW (for the uninitiated: Digital Economy Lab in the University of Warsaw Library building) and attract a large group of young and energetic girls who are considering starting their own business in the future. During these meetings, students have the opportunity to meet women who dared to start their own business, as well as learn about the difficulties they had to struggle with and how they achieved success. The nature of these meetings is casual and informal, which helps build a network of contacts and become familiar with the new, often still unknown world of entrepreneurship and business. But let's start from the beginning... On Wednesday, January 14.01, 2014, at the morning hour for a student, i.e. 9.40:XNUMX, I arrived at the University of Warsaw Library building and with some difficulty found the newly established DELab. When I got there, it turned out that the first stage of the meeting was… a real breakfast. The organizers prepared a whole stack of buttered croissants for the participants and a full range of coffee and tea. After such a pleasant awakening of the body, we began to stimulate the spirit. At the beginning, to break the ice, each participant was asked to introduce herself and tell why the topic of entrepreneurship was close and interesting to her. Thanks to this, we felt more at ease and were able to exchange more personal experiences and comments at a later stage. Then the main part of the meeting began, during which Katarzyna Wierzbowska told us about the operation of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Network, their goals and cooperation with DELab and the University of Warsaw. We learned about the “Business in Women’s Hands” program that helps women set up their own businesses, and we were cordially invited to participate in its next edition. Another interesting point of the meeting was a conversation with special guests – two young entrepreneurs – Diana and Edyta, who, thanks to the support of the above-mentioned “Business in Women’s Hands” programme, started their own businesses – an activity aimed at supporting consecutive interpreters and an activity aimed at developing new services in the field of telemedicine. The girls were eager to share their experiences and thoughts on entering the market and encouraged us to boldly pursue our own dreams. The entire meeting lasted over two hours and was a very interesting experience. Thanks to it, I learned what difficulties I will have to face when I start my own business, but I also received a lot of positive energy and support, both from our guests, participants and the organizers of the meeting. I think reaching out to young girls with good examples of women who have successfully started their own businesses is valuable grassroots work. I hope that in the future it will result in women taking a different look at their own professional development and that they will see another path after completing their studies. The path to your own business.