For every £1 of venture capital (VC) investment in the UK, all-female founder teams get less than 1p, all-male founder teams get 89p, and mixed-gender teams 10p. (British Business Bank)

83% of deals that UK VCs made last year had no women at all on the founding teams.

On International Women’s Day, I am challenging you all to take a moment and consider a world where we invested equally in women. All women, mothers, women of colour, LGBTQ+ community, and women with disabilities.

What would that world look like?

I want to take a moment to pause and to thank the women of DigiKind for living the values that underpin our brand.

We are a female-led business and are working to build happier, fairer, greener, more resilient local communities, which translates to a more equitable world.

We build community through digital transformation, placemaking, creative campaigns and business support. We do good and make a difference in a number of ways: individually — mentoring, sharing and promoting SMEs and best practices to raise awareness, some of us are writers and photographers, and others volunteer in our communities. We are ethical, pay a living wage, and embrace and champion diversity.

We are inspired by all women, every day and we champion remarkable women on our channels for free. No one asks us to do this. We just do it. We champion women who raise awareness for disability access or who invent new products and services around new ways to teach maths to kids with learning disabilities. Dynamic, diverse women who challenge the status quo and who are pioneers in science, art, music, technology, culture, travel and food. They don’t do it for themselves. They do it because they are changing the world.

Women are 50% of the world’s population. We are at a tipping point and only need 25% of the world’s population to take action on the issues that matter most.

For me, leadership is an action, not a position. I invite you – I urge you today and every day to take action on the issues that matter to you and learn more about the issues that matter to us at digikind.uk.

#IWD2023