Spotlight: University of Florida University Center Program Empowers Women in Innovation

With diversity critical to the success of innovation in the U.S., research cited by the University of Florida (UF) shows that there is still a significant disparity in the numbers of women entrepreneurs and innovators.

To help fill the gap and boost our national competitiveness, the UF EDA University Center (UFUC) created the Collaboratory for Women Innovators to help inspire, educate, and empower women to attain leadership roles in all phases of the innovation life cycle.

The Collaboratory has developed a concrete, replicable plan for overcoming these barriers and changing the paradigm.

The measureable activities the UFUC has identified to help fill the economic ecosystem gaps and achieve regional economic development include:

• Ensuring greater inclusion of women in the entire Innovation Lifecycle through support via the newly created Collaboratory for Women Innovators that will be located in Phase II of the technology incubator expansion of the Innovation Hub at UF, which is partially funded by EDA. This will be done by providing in-depth training, coaching and mentoring to a minimum of 100 women annually.
• Using lessons learned at the Collaboratory to create a roadmap for other communities interested in developing programs to garner greater inclusion of women. The goal will be to have a working draft by year two and refine it annually based on new experiences.
• Continuing to leverage the synergies of the University of Florida Office of Technology Licensing, the Innovation Hub, the UFUC and the Warrington College of Business Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center to support the creation and growth of technology-based startups throughout the state with an emphasis on increasing the percentage of startups founded by women.

By increasing female participation, the Collaboratory is working to increase overall startup activity, thus contributing to the economic prosperity of the Gainesville/Northern Florida region and the State of Florida through job generation and increased tax revenue.

While the Collaboratory has a focus on women, they also offer programming that is non-gender specific.

You can engage with the Collaboratory in several ways: as a participant/mentee, mentor/educational partner or sponsor.

Please visit the Collaboratory’s website for additional information.