ELLEvate Women Leaders in Tech
Empowerment, Networking, and Inspiration
This year I had the immense privilege to celebrate Tunisia National Women’s Day with the brightest influential women and leaders in the Tech community during the EllEvate conference.
As a firm believer in women empowerment and bringing more girls into Tech and entrepreneurship, I truly think that creating more opportunities for women to network, listen to stories, and be inspired is crucial in building the momentum we need to advance women in leadership in Tunisia and the MENA region in general.
ELLEvate conference is born on August 12 2022 and is now the first large leadership conference fully dedicated to women in Tunisia. It is a collaboration between the Open Minds Project that I personally lead and the GIZ Tunisie Digital Transformation team.
We worked together to craft the conference program and launch the WOmentoring initiative. A 6-month mentoring program dedicated to female-led startups in Tunisia. This project aims to connect the Tunisian Diaspora, eager to give back, to the startup ecosystem.
On this very special day, we brought together wonderful speakers and moderators from around the world, including the US, Canada, France, Luxembourg, and Tunisia. Among our guests were female entrepreneurs, ecosystem experts, Startup founders, incubator managers, students, and professors. They all showed up eager to learn and ready to be inspired.
One of the conference highlights was a panel discussion on “Funding Women Entrepreneurs in Tunisia: How to Empower with Growth”.
The panel guests shared the struggle they have accessing funding for their initiatives and also provided tips and lessons learned for raising funding. They spoke about the importance of confidence when searching for opportunities and policies such as Startup 2.0 that could give a boost to the whole ecosystem. (Panel Recording here)
In my keynote address — Career Acceleration Strategies, I shared tips on how to be effective and intentional when networking and growing our network. I focused my talk on how creating content and volunteering had an immense impact on my personal journey.
ELLEvate ‘s energy was incredible. It was a full day of inspiration, networking, and building relationships. I was so pumped to share my knowledge and be able to give back through the Open minds project.
Absolutely thankful for my partners: GIZ, Startup Tunisia, Graines entrepreneurs, and Tunisian Startups who made it possible. A big shoutout goes to all moderators ( Sahar Dridi, Sabrine Jelassi, Salma Baghdadi, Aymen El Sakka Wassim ben Larbi..), and guest speakers: Amel Saidane, Hidayat al Ayadi, Houda Bakir, Houda Ghozzi, and Imen Ayari.
I can’t wait for ELLEvate 2.0!
