By Bhavana Akella,

Toronto : Computer maker Dell will celebrate empowering women entrepreneurs from the world over at a three-day global summit from Sunday in this Canadian metropolis.

“The ninth edition of the annual Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) from July 15-17 connects women entrepreneurs from across the world with networks, sources of capital, knowledge and technology,” said the US-based Dell Technologies in a statement ahead of the event.

The summit provides a platform to about 200 women business leaders, founders and entrepreneurs from countries like Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Denmark, France, India, Israel, Japan and US to discuss issues on scaling and growing their businesses.

Since its inception in 2010, the annual gathering of businesswomen from the world over was held at San Francisco in the US, Cape Town in South Africa, Berlin in Germany, New Delhi and Shanghai in China among other cities.

Dell’s senior women executives, including Chief Customer Officer Karen Quintos, Senior Vice-President Christine Fraser, Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand Angela Fox are among others who will be present at the three-day event.

Women leaders from other technology firms like chip maker Intel’s Canada Director Elaine Mah, global software major Microsoft Canada’s social media head Roisin Bonner, London-based Ernst & Young’s investment banker Marla Brefka Heller and Canada’s Minister of Small Business and Tourism Bardish Chagger are the key speakers.

The summit will explore discussions on subjects like the power of women at work, women funding women-run businesses and the future of work.

Though women entrepreneurs worldwide are estimated to be 274 million, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 2016-17, women-led businesses are known to receive fewer investments compared to those run by men, indicating stark gender bias.

A study by America’s Columbia University researcher Dana Kanze revealed that a mere 2 per cent of venture capitalist funding goes to women entrepreneurs in the US, despite they owning 38 per cent of the businesses in the richest country.

Amidst not-so-feasible conditions world across for women to succeed in businesses, the event will give women an opportunity to explore ways of securing funding through various women investors.

The summit will also release a Dell Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) Index, a gender-specific index showing a city’s ability to foster the growth of women-owned firms.

In 2017, the WE Cities Index released at a similar summit in San Francisco found that the Indian capital New Delhi ranked 49 in 50 countries, with New York topping the list.

(Bhavana Akella is in Toronto at the invitation of DWEN. She can be contacted at bhavana.a@ians.in)

—IANS