In the piece, where she mourns the cultural-annihilation San Francisco has faced since the birth of Big Tech, she quotes PayPal founder Peter Thiel who wrote in 2009, “I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives and the ideology of the inevitability of death of every individual.” 

Thiel recently demonstrated his libertarian agendas by signing on as an investor in the privately funded drug-friendly sports contest, The Enchanted Games.

The competition, which describes itself as “the modern reinvention of the Olympic Games that does not have drug testing,” is headed by Aron D’Souza, Thiel’s former lawyer. The backers of The Enchanted Games believe athletes should be allowed, encouraged even, to use every advantage they can to secure success: they should take as much performance enhancement drugs as they want — all in the name of becoming better, stronger, faster. They believe that banning performance enhancements is stifling scientific innovation. 

The Games will not test athletes for drugs or any performance enhancers at its events, because it “embra[ces] ways science and technology can enhance human performance,” D’Souza, president of the Enhanced Games, said in the statement. 

“The Enhanced Movement believes in the medical and scientific process of elevating humanity to its full potential, through community of committed athletes.”

“[We] see the vision of a new model of sports, that openly celebrates scientific innovation and honestly represents the use of performance enhancements in sports today.” 

The Games will focus on individual sports across athletics, aquatics, combat, gymnastics and strength. 

“By focusing on world records in popular sports such as track and field, swimming, gymnastics, weight lifting and combat sports, we can eliminate wasteful infrastructure spending and reinvest to fairly pay all athletes,” D’Souza said. 

“In the era of accelerating technological and scientific change, the world needs a sporting event that embraces the future, particularly advances in medical science.” 

But what’s really going on here? Who are the people behind this contest? And what are they really trying to do? 

It’s a men’s club

The Enchanted Games is backed by the world’s richest venture capitalists. We have Peter Thiel, the conservative tech billionaire and founder of companies such as Palantir, which monitors immigrants for the Department of Homeland Security in the US. Thiel has had a long history of defying public safety and policy regulations. He was also one of the early investors of Facebook. 

There’s Christian Angermayer, founder of Apeiron Investment Group — a private investment company with a biotech portfolio that includes Atai Life Science, who are currently developing a rapid-acting anti-depressant for home use. Atai has backing from Thiel. 

Angermayer is a big name in the psychedelic industry — he’s been open about how taking mushrooms since 2015 has changed the course of his life. 

He described The Enhanced Games as having “forward-thinking ethos”, and one that “…improves the safety and fairness of competition but also stimulates scientific breakthroughs and nurtures human advancement.”

“The Enhanced games will undoubtedly inspire the public’s imagination and reinforce the profound impact of science on human progress,” he said in a statement. 

Then we have Balaji Srinivasan, a cryptocurrency investor and former CTO of Coinbase, who has been described as a polymath and angel investor who believes that tech has the power to eventually initiate a nation-free world. 

Out of the eleven individuals on the leadership team, there’s one woman — Jodhi Ramsden-Mavric, who is listed as a creative assistant, and who has a background in the film industry. The six people on the company’s Scientific and Medical Advisory Commission come from various backgrounds, including a Harvard professor, a co-founder of OxWash (sustainable commercial laundry service-providers) and a naturopathic doctor. Two are women.

Thomas Rex Dolan, the 19-year old Victorian and Gen Z Party founder and president, is listed as head of executive operations. According to his LinkedIn page, Dolan is D’Souza’s godson. 

The Athletes Advisory Commission consists of five men and just one woman. On the games website, it explains that they “embrace[s] the inclusion of science in sports” and is “unencumbered by anachronistic legacy systems.”

I wonder how they can do this with an organisation that clearly lacks the most basic form of diversity?

Sketchy on the details 

Since the games started making headlines last month, many people have been left scratching their heads. The organisation hasn’t been clear about some details. 

For one, it has declared that it will pay the athletes who compete in the games, but it hasn’t said exactly how much. 

Athletes will be paid a base salary and will compete for additional prize money. According to the website, a prize pool and compensation model will be announced later this year. 

Who gets to compete?

Calling themselves the “most inclusive sports league in history,” the organisers said all adults are eligible to compete in the games regardless of whether they are “natural, adaptive, or enhanced, an amateur or a former Olympian.” 

Registration is set to open later this year, though the actual dates for the contest have not been announced. 

It’s dangerous for the athletes 

The Games insist they will be the “safest international sporting event in history” and will ensure every athlete undergoes full medical screenings to monitor any risks.

But critics believe the competition’s agenda will risk both athletes’ health and sport itself. Two experts from the University of Canberra feared that athletes will turn into “injectable avatars” who will endanger their health by taking medicines that have been approved for human use.

“There’s no shortage of evidence demonstrating the dangers of pharmaceutical abuse for performance enhancement, let alone what might happen when used in experimental combinations and dosages,” Professor Catherine Ordway said last week.

“Elite sport is not conducted on a level playing field. Access to money, knowledge, power and technology already gives some athletes an edge over others, and the Enhanced Games would exacerbate these inequalities.”

Travis Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), called the games “farcical,” and that it would be “a dangerous clown show, not real sport.” 

Jamie Crain, CEO of Sports Medicine Australia, took aim at the games’ PR material, which runs on the “anything is possible with science” ideology, pitting “science” as the gateway towards human progress and excellence.

“Science is the process of experimenting and observing and recording results and adjusting accordingly to get a certain outcome or just to understand a topic,” Crain told the ABC.

“And in this context that means they’re going to be giving otherwise fit people experimental substances to see what the outcomes is in the hope it might make them faster or stronger. Is that good science? If it produces a fast athlete who ends up with medical complications down the line, you would argue, no, it is not good science.”

Former Olympic swimmer Kieren Perkins said he could not see “any responsible and ethical person thinking the Enhance Games is even remotely sensible”.

“As soon as you start to go down the murky slope of allowing these sorts of drugs to be involved in the system you are completely setting aside the athlete’s physical and mental wellbeing and prioritising commercial gains and that’s not a place we want to be,” Perkins, now the CEO of the Australian Sports Commission, said.

Last week, retired Olympic swimming medalist James Magnussen announced he would compete in The Enhanced Games to try to break the 50m record for a reported $1.6 million. 

His reason? Money. 

“To be completely transparent, the money is a huge part,” he told News Corp. “A $1.6 million Australian dollar prize is hard to ignore.”

They’re out to make money

The carefully worded PR materials from the games’ website spruce their mission to enhance the “the medical and scientific process of elevating humanity to its full potential.”

But clearly, when you’ve got the world’s richest men backing this, it’s clear the end game is generating money. According to some media reports, D’Souza has plans to hold the games annually and stream it on platforms like YouTube to garner revenue. 

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The research, by Harvard Business School Associate Professor Katherine B. Coffman reveals businesses can draw more women applicants by making it easier for candidates to know whether they’re qualified. This involves getting rid of vague language about the experience and skills required in job postings and listing more precise qualifications.  

“We found that candidates were talented, and yet they self-selected out,” said Coffman, whose research study was inspired by a commonly quoted statistic: Men apply for a job when they meet only 60 per cent of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100 per cent of them.

Coffman and her research team set out to provide empirical evidence to this age-old statistic by first running experimental ads on freelance job platform UpWork. 

The first ads called for expertise in stereotypically male-dominated domains, and used fairly generic and vague language: “We are looking for candidates with [management expertise/experience in analytical thinking], as demonstrated through education, past work experience, and test scores. Successful applicants will also have strong writing and communication skills.” 

The research team offered an “intermediate” position, as well as an “expert” track that was considered more challenging but also came with more pay. Candidates had to choose which position to apply for, if any.

Just 6 per cent of women applied for the expert job, compared to 22 per cent of qualified men. 

Conversely, when the ad language was changed to provide clear guidance on the required qualifications, more women applicants (29 per cent) responded. The ‘clear guidance’ included asking candidates for an exact threshold of analytical or management UpWork test scores to apply to the advanced position. 

Coffman’s team then repeated the experiment on the research platform Prolific to clarify the results, which turned out to be similar to the UpWork study. Only 42 per cent of qualified women applied when vague job qualification language was used, compared to 56 per cent of men. And when specific guidance was given, the per cent of women applicants jumped up to 62 per cent.

In light of these results, Coffman offers some advice for hiring managers looking to attract more female candidates to their job postings: steer clear of vague qualifications, state the amount of experience and the skills candidates should possess, as well as actively recruit qualified female candidates, rather than waiting for people to apply. 

The advice is imperative for businesses as the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Gender Gap Report has declared only slow and steady gains for the proportion of women hired to leadership positions in the past eight years (a rate of just one per cent annually, that dropped to just 32 per cent in the first quarter of 2023). 

The data also shows women represent 46 per cent of entry-level roles, but then only 25 per cent of C-Suite roles. And the Global Gender Gap is also still 131 years away from closing. 

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20-something boys start a company. 20-something boys get given millions. 20-something boys can’t make business model work. 20-something boys meet their first girl and pivot to … *drumroll* “A WOMENS ONLY CLUB FOR THE GIRLIES OF NEW YORK”.

It’s legitimately concerning how much this reads like satire.

While women have (rightly) been mocking the news online, the venture capital firm behind the company, Blackbird, has been notably quiet. We’ve all been waiting with bated breath to hear what they have to say. When it finally arrived, what we got was an apology for how the pivot was announced (which, while annoying, is not the actual problem), followed by paragraphs of defensiveness about how they’re actually doing a good job and why can’t we all just be grateful for that?

“Since Blackbird started deploying our 2022 core fund, we have invested in 22 companies, and 23% of these have at least one woman founder.”

Let’s leave aside the fact that they notably funded 11 male-led companies in a row, and instead calculate that 23% of 22 is five. Five companies that had at least one female founder. Of those five companies, the number with only female founders? Three. How many of the product offerings from these ventures are primarily aimed at women? None.

Because when all-women leadership teams pitch products for women, the data tells us: they don’t get funded. And that’s our real canary in the proverbial coalmine.

Half the population is just too niche

Blackbird – and other VC firms – crow about creating equality by having an equal number of women in high level roles, but at the end of the day every woman who has ever worked in any organisation knows that an equal number of women in particular roles means nothing if the company culture still has a single definition of value.

Every woman I know who has pitched a product predominantly aimed at women has heard from most VCs – if not all – that the product is ‘too niche.’ As though a total addressable market of 3.95 billion people is … small?

This is why women founders are infuriated by this story. It’s not even that a group of boys in their 20’s have the gall to start a “women’s only club”. It’s that if an all-women team stepped into the room with the same idea, the very people who funded Kiki would offer those women mentoring instead of money.

Blackbird went on to say:

“Our virtual mentoring program Giants coaches more than 400 founders every year, 55% of which are female. 50% of the startups in our deep tech focussed incubator program Foundry have a woman or non-binary founder. Our sister company Startmate runs the Womens Fellowship to help women career-pivoting into startups, which has directly resulted in 376 women getting a job in startups or VC or founding a company in the 3.5 years the program has been running.”

These kinds of programs are an easy out for organisations – they talk about them being ‘pathways’ – but the reality is over the last five years, VC funding for women-led companies worldwide has either gone backwards or is completely stagnant.

The percentage of VC funding for women worldwide:

• 2019: 2.8%
• 2020: 2.3%
• 2021: 2.4%
• 2022: 1.9%
• 2023: 2.8%

Net gain in 5 years: 0.0%

These programs aren’t pathways. They’re dead ends.

There is, of course, an easy answer to this problem. If you want more women to get funded, give them the money. It sounds so simple, because it is. And I’m also aware it won’t happen. This problem is endemic. Across the board, women are given platitudes instead of positions. Mentoring instead of money.

Men are allowed to fail, women aren’t

It ties back into a prevailing, perverse concept that the issue is simply women lack confidence. It has become a way to subtly build a narrative where the issue isn’t a lack of access to resources, but a lack of women’s willingness to ask. This narrative allows organisations to skip over taking any kind of meaningful action and instead of actually promoting or funding women, to pay (often male) motivational speakers to lecture us on how we can do better.

In rooms full of women founders, I’m hearing this consistently – women are looking to bootstrap. They’re trying to figure out how to grow without the system. As someone who did exactly that, I support it, but I also understand the limitations that come with bootstrapping. Business is a cash-hungry machine – growth is hindered when you’re limited to cashflow in order to feed it.

Add in the proposed changes around who qualifies as a sophisticated investor (the new rules would count out a large percentage of women who currently qualify, and currently women rely on other women for angel and seed investment) and we’re heading towards a catastrophic disaster. Not just for women leading startups. But for the business ecosystem and, by extension, society as a whole.

A couple of years ago I spoke with someone high up at an Australian VC firm who insinuated the reason women weren’t getting funded was that they weren’t applying.

While it’s impossible to know the exact numbers across the entire industry, estimates show us about 34% of pitches have a women-led team. If we adjust the 2.8% funding percentage to account for the application split, even at a 1:1 ratio women are literally half as likely to get funding. Those numbers took me about five minutes to do with Google and a calculator. Of course the industry is aware of them. Once again, it’s just more convenient to blame everything on women’s lack of confidence than to make any kind of real change.

VCs can gloat about how many women they employ but the real story is in the numbers, and the numbers don’t lie. The needle either isn’t moving or, when it does, it goes backwards.

The choice I’ve made, like the choice I see many other women founders moving towards, is to divest from a system that’s hostile towards me. I have a life rule about only staying in places where my presence is celebrated, not tolerated. And certainly not dismissed.

Bootstrapping is a part of this – and so is women coming together to support each other, whether that’s financially or with partnerships. I, for one, refuse to participate in a system that demands I beg men for a 2.8% chance to grow my business. Because raising money shouldn’t come at the price of your self-respect.

It certainly doesn’t for men.

This article was first published by Smart Company. Read the original article here.

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Rather, she thinks about her days as having 24 hours that she can balance between her personal and work lives, and her weeks as seven days that can also be carved up. 

Working across different timezones for Microsoft, she still works more than a 40-hour week but will take time out during the day for a few hours to do something else and catch up on the weekend.

Once a quarter, she blocks out a week where she puts herself on “leave from meetings” to focus on the big picture. She uses the time to focus on strategy, as well as team development and getting across the latest trends in the industry. 

As Director, Specialty Technology Unit at Microsoft, this approach to work is one Wise shares with her team, encouraging them to find what works best for them and being honest about how it’s working out for her.  

“I’m transparent about my challenges and success, and this gives them permission to do the same,” Wise tells Women’s Agenda.  

Microsoft’s approach to hybrid work and flexibility is bucking the trend of the push to get employees back to the office Monday to Friday. Team members can choose between working remotely for less than 50 per cent of their normal work week, or they can work remotely 100 per cent of the time if they have manager approval. 

The flex work policy is centred around recognising individual needs and promoting work-life balance. It also aims to support employees to work during the hours that are best for them in delivering according to expectations. It supports wellbeing and adaptability, but also productivity in recognising that people have individual approaches to getting their best work done. 

A blog post published more than four years ago by Kathleen Hogan, Executive Vic President and Chief People Officer, outlining the approach to flexibility still stands – again bucking the trend of some other tech firms to increasingly get people back to working in more traditional ways. “Moving forward,” she wrote in October 2021, “it is our goal to offer as much flexibility as possible to support individual workstyles while balancing business needs and ensuring we live our culture,” 

Increasingly, we’re seeing how workers want the best of both worlds when it comes to remote working and time spent in the office. Microsoft describes this as the “hybrid paradox”, noting figures from its 2021 Work Trends Index, a study of more than 31,000 workers in 31 countries, finding that 70 per cent of workers wanted flexible work to stay, but more than 65 per cent craved having more face to face time with their teams. 

For Elena Wise, staying flexible on how and when she works enables her to get the most out of her time, and to be constantly thinking about the future. She’ll dedicate headspace for planning, thinking and learning, and try to block out Mondays as meeting-free days – unless she needs to travel or there’s an urgent issue. “I use this time to get on top of key actions for the week ahead, and to upskill on some of our latest AI training, which really helps given how quickly the technology is moving.” 

With a career spanning some of the world’s largest organisations and biggest markets, including AMEX, PayPal and Google and ten years spent in Japan, Wise has developed her work style to be able to respond to needs across international borders. 

Asked how she establishes herself in new cities and markets, she recalls making her first international move and being given the advice always to give such a move at least six months because wherever you go, you’ll need time to adjust culturally and there will be times when you just want to pull the pin. “Patience is key,” she says. “Building relationships and trust is crucial and learning from different perspectives enriches your experience.” 

Wise says she spends time meeting people one-on-one both in work and social contexts, joining local business chambers, clubs and expat groups, and notes the importance of staying connected with current past colleagues and contacts. 

Wise is a pioneering woman in tech, now one of Microsoft’s most senior leaders in Australia and having spent years in senior leadership positions, including as country manager and GM Japan of PayPal and Country Manager of Google Technical Services in Japan and Korea. 

Looking broadly across the tech industry, she wants to see more companies pushing the focus beyond diversity and hiring to focus on inclusion, and understand women’s needs and perspectives. 

“There is a need to provide flexibility and tools for women to work in ways that suit their personal and professional goals, and not expect them to fit into rigid or traditional, often male-dominated or male-created, models,” she says. 

Wise wants to see more male allies getting involved in women’s networks and agendas to understand the experiences women have. She highlights one particularly positive experience of this at Microsoft, where she is seeing strong interest from male employees seeking guidance or support for partners experiencing menopause, which is one of the areas their Families Employee Resource Group is currently focusing on. 

“Companies in all sectors need to support women throughout their life cycle better, not just when they are having children, but also when they are caring for elderly parents, managing illness, or experiencing menopause, for example,” she says. 

Just as there is no one working style that will work for everyone, there is no set communication style for leading a successful team. 

“As leaders, we need to adapt our language and approach for different audiences/team members to help get the best outcomes – be those different genders, cultural backgrounds, or generational adjustments.”

Women’s Agenda spoke to Elena Wise to learn more about flexible work, thanks to our partnership with Family Friendly Workplaces.

This year Microsoft will be measuring their policies against the National Work + Family Standards as part of the Family Friendly Workplace Certification, having been certified for the previous two years already. Microsoft says it’s important employers pursue family-friendly workplace accreditation to demonstrate a commitment to work-life balance, gender equality, and employee well-being, and also for attracting and retaining the best talent and enhancing a company’s reputation. 

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Yet reports that some large companies are considering doing just that have begun circulating as employers fight to bring people back on site for at least 50 percent of the time.

Late last year, an internal memo to ANZ staff, shared by The Aussie Corporate Instagram page, showed the bank cracking down on staff who worked from home more than half the time.

It warned that if employees didn’t “meet the standards expected [of 50 per cent attendance], it may factor into your performance rating and PRR [Performance and Remuneration Review] outcomes at the end of the FY24 year.”

More recently, PwC’s UK boss warned that young workers who don’t come into office at least four times a week will be replaced with artificial intelligence.

The threat to link on-site work to performance, the pay packet — and even to keeping one’s job — is a sign that post Covid 19 lockdowns, both employers and employees are struggling to find the right balance between working on-site and remotely.

“There is no one simple answer to this,” says Dr Fiona Macdonald, policy director at the industrial and social department at the Centre for Future Work.

“While some employees are happy to go into the office a few days a week, in some places people don’t want to be in the office at all. It’s pretty problematic for organisations in how they manage that.”

While many organisations continue to include flexible work policies following the pandemic years of 2020 to 2022, the creep of presenteeism and messages that those working from home may suffer from being “out of sight and out of mind”, as well as being seen as less productive, are intensifying in some sectors.

“We have organisations which are overwhelmingly staffed by men, and while I don’t think most men consciously think they don’t want women in their workplace, there is definitely less understanding about people’s life circumstances if you don’t have diversity,” says Macdonald.

And while for many the model to return to working how we used to — 9 to 5, on-site — seems easier to implement, experts believe companies need to move beyond that and try harder to offer flexibility.

“It’s well past the time where we’re thinking workplaces need to be based on male models of working in the 1970s,” Macdonald says, but points out that many workplaces have not been structured around hybrid and flexible work.

“Managers haven’t been training to think about it,” she adds. “It takes effort to figure out how to organise staff who are working remotely some of the time, and what is the best way to get them to come together and work well as a team.”

The problem is that the “cat’s out of the bag” when it comes to hybrid working, with people now expecting some degree of leniency from their bosses. For many women, the flex work policies implemented during Covid were a godsend, and enabled a much more reasonable work-life balance.

Demanding that staff return to work physically will disproportionately impact those with caring responsibilities (usually women), says Sarah McCann-Bartlett, CEO at Australian HR Institute.

“Rigid office attendance requirements might inadvertently create barriers to workplace participation for those with caring responsibilities, who we know are more likely to be women.”

Families and home life have always adapted to organisations, points out Macdonald: maybe it’s time that organisations adapt a little to life. Men also need to get on board and fight for the right to hybrid work.

“If we want more men to do more caring, men need to be demanding these changes too,” she says. “Unfortunately change comes slowly: it’s two steps forward, one step back”. 

Fortunately, some data suggests the situation is not quite so gloomy. McCann-Bartlett points to AHRI’s most recent survey, which, after talking to 452 employers, found that while more employers are specifying how many days a week employees should work on-site, most (that can) are maintaining a hybrid work model.

“Very few employers are requiring employees to return to the physical workplace five days a week,” says Sarah McCann-Bartlett, CEO at Australian HR Institute. “AHRI’s research shows that in 2023, only 7 per cent of employers required full time employees to attend physically all five days”.

The research also found that nearly all (97 per cent) of organisations offered some form of flexible working arrangement aside from hybrid working, such as  part-time work (85 per cent); flexi time (53 per cent); compressed hours or compressed working weeks (45 per cent); and career breaks (44 per cent).

Senior lecturer in work and organisational studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Dr Meraiah Foley, believes organisations are “finding themselves in a pickle trying to work out what is the right balance between having people physically present to build culture, foster innovation and help train new graduates, and allowing the kind of flexibility people have become used to”.

“People like working remotely and having autonomy and flexibility, and in many instances, people aren’t returning to their workplace to the extent organisations would like them to,” she tells Women’s Agenda.

Seemingly every week, cases about “battles” between employees and employers fighting for balance are aired in public, including a sales rep being awarded $26,000 in compensation after being fired by his employer over “lack of commitment” for working from home on compulsory on-site days; a scientist failing to get his job back following the sack for secretly working overseas; and Fair Work upholding that a remote working lawyer was unfairly fired for trawling music, books, comic and PlayStation websites while on the clock.

Foley says any organisations that plan to dock pay based on office attendance are extremely problematic, and a return to the “idea that productivity is time spent in the office… and not based on outputs and outcomes”.

“It’s also extremely problematic from a gender equality perspective, as it’s just going to reward people who don’t have caring responsibilities or who have the capacity to work long hours,” she adds.

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While Ciccone thanked his parliamentary colleagues for creating a “family-friendly environment” in the Senate and encouraged other fathers to bring their kids to work, the fact Ciccone’s proud, baby-holding moment came seven years after Senator Larissa Waters became the first federal politician to bring her baby into the senate was a subtle reminder of the lag that remains in men accessing family-friendly workplace policies. 

This issue could be addressed thanks to changes in how workplaces are required to report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. 

Most of us are well aware that the gender pay gaps of employers will be made public on the 27th of February when WGEA publishes such data from firms with 100 or more employees. But this is just one of several changes impacting workplaces that will ultimately affect employees with family responsibilities, thanks to the passage of the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023, aimed at enabling more accountability and transparency on workplace gender equality. 

From April 1, employers who report to WGEA (those with 100 or more team members) will be required to answer new mandatory questions and provide CEO pay details and remuneration numbers for those in Head of Business and Casual Manager roles. These employers will also be required to report on sexual harassment, harassment on the grounds of sex or discrimination. 

Employers with more than 500 or more team members must go a step further. In addition to providing the above details, these employers must include details of their policy or strategy for each of the six gender equality indicators. 

The six Gender Equality Indicators include: 

1. Gender composition of the workforce 
2. Gender composition of governing bodies
3. Equal remuneration between women and men 
4. Availability and utility of employment terms, flexible working arrangements, & support for family & caring responsibilities
5. Consultation with employees on gender equality in the workplace 
6. Sexual harassment, including harassment on the ground of sex or discrimination. 

WGEA has long aimed to address all six of these indicators in their reporting requirements, but these new changes will mark the first time that employers are required to have policies or strategies in place that address all of them in some way. 

All six play an important part in enabling gender equality, but the fourth GEI is particularly interesting for bringing down barriers those with family and caring responsibilities continue to come up against. 

The key word in this indicator is “utility”. Making flexible working arrangements and various support for family and caring responsibilities available is always a good step, but the more difficult and important step is ensuring such support mechanisms are actually used. This means directly reporting the number of employees using such policies and breaking it down according to areas like job level, gender and other relevant metrics. 

The results of WGEA’s 2022-23 Census, launched in November 2023, highlight the opportunity for stronger progress on areas like workplace flexibility and providing greater support to families. 

One area is on paid parental leave, where employers are increasingly evolving their policies to offer better primary and secondary carer leave, as well as much stronger initiatives around removing labels altogether to offer the same amount of leave to all new parents. But the uptick in men taking leave is not moving fast enough.  There was little change in the proportion of men taking paid parental leave in WGEA’s 2022-23 Census results, rising just 0.6 per cent to 14 per cent of those taking employer-funded paid primary carer’s leave. 

And while there has been significant progress around workplace flexibility in recent years, the WGEA results show that part time work is still being penalised when it comes to promotions and opportunities. Just seven per cent of management roles are part time, indicating a “part time promotions gap” which is a problem, particularly for women, given thirty per cent of women work part time. 

While employers have been making progress against most of the six gender equality indicators since 2013-14, when WGEA reporting requirements began, the progress is too slow. The game-changer now is for employers to report on their policies and how such policies and initiatives are actually being utilised, effectively measuring their impact on closing the gap.

At Family Friendly Workplaces, we’ve seen the power of recording and tracking the effectiveness of family-inclusive policies and practices to support employees in combining work and family commitments. Collecting such evidence sees family-friendly workplace policies and practices evolving to meet an organisation’s ESG and gender equality targets. Family-friendly policies, including flexible work, modern paid parental leave, inclusive leadership, family care and wellbeing initiatives, ultimately support gender equality efforts while making the workplace better for everything. 

Senator Raff Ciccone is one of countless dads keen on taking up workplace policies to make their work more family-friendly. In Ciccone’s case, Senate rules changed in 2016 to end a ban on children entering the house during divisions. The focus then was on allowing female MPs to breastfeed in the chamber, but really it’s an opportunity for all new parents to care for their children during the long proceedings when needed, and to also nomalise the mix of family and work for everyone. 

One thing is for certain, workplaces will need to stay ahead of the curve by by embracing family-friendly policies to improve gender equality outcomes to close the gap. 

You can read Family Friendly Workplaces’ free guide on transforming family-friendly policies and practices into gender equality solutions here. 

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The survey, funded by the Department of Social Services, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) and managed by the Melbourne Institute, found that in the four weeks leading up to this year’s survey, almost one in five women reported working when they were physically unwell, while 16.8 per cent of employed men said they worked while feeling physically unwell. 

Roughly the same number of women reported working when they were mentally unwell, while just 11.1 per cent of men did the same. 

Those with a moderate or severe disability or in poor mental health were also much more likely to work when unwell. 

The 18th Annual Statistical Report of the HILDA Survey is a nationally representative longitudinal study of Australian households, following the lives of more than 17,000 Australians each year since 2001. 

Collecting information on many aspects of life in Australia, including household and family relationships, income and employment, and health and education, this year’s survey revealed some startling trends for women. Here, we look at a few of them. 

Working conditions

Men were less likely than women to be primarily working from home, the latest study found. In 2019, a mere 3.5 per cent per cent of people worked entirely from home, and 6.5 per cent worked at least 50 per cent of the time from home. In 2021, the figures shot up to 17.7 per cent and 24.3 respectively. 

The industries with the highest number of people mainly working from home are financial and insurance services, information media and telecommunications. Meanwhile, those working in retail, hospitality, education and arts were less likely to be working from home. 

The study also found a link between the number of employed parents and their use of formal child care. Unemployed mothers were less likely to seek formal child care. Unemployed fathers also lead to a decrease in using child care services, however the percentage reduced was much lower. 

The study concluded that the reason for these associations could either be that full-time employment could lead to the use of formal child care, or that having access to formal child care can be a precondition to seeking full time paid employment. 

The number of women in paid employment has also risen, especially in the group aged 65 to 69, where currently, one in four are employed.

Roughly 40 per cent of women aged between 18-64 are now employed full-time, while the proportion of men in that age group continue to be largely employed full time (70 per cent).

The gender pay gap is also slowly shrinking. In 2016, women earned just 78 per cent of what men earned. The latest study showed that now, women earn approximately 86 per cent of what men earn — still an extremely problematic figure. 

The average earnings made by a woman has also risen, though not to the heights of men. In 2021, the average female earning rose to 75 per cent of male average earnings, an increase from 2001 of 66 per cent. 

Marriage

Fewer Australians are now deciding to walk down the aisle compared to a few decades ago. The percentage of women who were married in 2001 was 54.5 per cent. In 2021, that number dropped down to 48.2 per cent. 

More women are now opting to be in de facto relationships. Between 2001 to 2021, the percentage went from 8.9 per cent to 14.3 per cent. Similar figures were found with men. 

The largest cohort of Australians who have decided to waive marriage are those aged between 25 to 34. Generally, less people are partnering up in conventional, romantic relationships. 

Between 2002 to 2004, 31.1 per cent of men and 26.8 per cent of women self-identified as being in a romantic relationship. Between the 2014 to 2016 period, that figure dropped to 26.7 per cent of men and 23.7 per cent of women. 

When it comes to self-assessed relationship satisfaction, women aged 40 to 59 reported lower relationship satisfaction than their male counterparts. 

Last year’s HILDA study already charted a growing number of Australians drifting away from living with their intimate partner. Dr Esperanza Vera-Toscano, an economist and senior research fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, attributed the “qualitative shift in our understanding of family” to a progressive framework of thinking.

“We need get used to the fact that the traditional pathway of meeting someone, having a relationship that ends up in marriage and children, has changed,” she said. “There are other situations that need to be brought into the picture. It’s important we understand them.”

Loneliness and psychological distress

Those aged between 15-24 now encompass the highest portion of lonely individuals. In the period between 2001 and 2009, the greatest proportion of lonely people were those aged 65 and older. 

The study’s co-author Dr Ferdi Botha, said “There is a clear trend of younger people becoming lonelier and feeling more isolated as time goes on.” 

“If there aren’t actions taken or policies implemented to intervene, we may see loneliness and psychological distress increasing in the younger generations and this may lead to lower mental and physical wellbeing and other wider societal issues,” he said in a statement. 

“Loneliness increased in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, but for young people, there is a longer-term trend increase apparent. It may be that this is partly connected to growth in smart phones and social media use.” 

People in the youngest age cohort (15-24) also reported the highest average distress scores, with 42.3 per cent of them reporting they were psychologically distressed in 2021. Women aged 15 to 24 reported higher levels of distress than older women in the 35 to 54 and 65 and over age category, showing that the average psychological distress levels declined with age. 

Overall, women also reported higher levels of psychological distress. Between 2007 to 2021, the prevalence of psychological distress among women increased by roughly 63 per cent. In 2021, almost one in three women said they were in distress, compared to 22.7 per cent of men. The study measured participants’ psychological distress by asking them questions such as, “In the last four weeks, about how often did you feel tired out for no good reasons? Nervous? Hopeless? Depressed?”

Use of prescription drugs in Australia

More women are using strong painkillers than men, the latest study found. Almost thirty per cent of women reported using strong painkillers or pain-relievers with opioids in them, and 14 per cent reported using tranquillisers and/or sleeping pills. 

The strong painkillers may include Tramadol, Fentanyl, Oxycodone, morphine, codeine products such as Panadeine Forte. 

According to the study’s authors, most respondents were using the strong painkillers only infrequently, “…suggesting they are primarily used for temporary relief from pain, anxiety or sleep issues.” 

“However, it is crucial to acknowledge that these drugs have potential negative consequences, such as addiction, overdose and harmful interactions.” 

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The Members Connect Series will provide a platform for women to engage in discussions concerning industry trends and pioneering programs, offering them unique insights and opportunities. The aim is to advance the careers of women and increase female participation in the sector.

Founder and Director of Franklin Women, Dr Melina Georgousakis says that members of Franklin Women bring diverse experiences and skills to the sector, so bringing them together through the Members Connect Series is a special opportunity. 

“By connecting these women outside of their day-to-day and linking them with innovative ecosystem partners, we are facilitating opportunities for them to thrive,” she said. 

Franklin Womn is a leading social enterprise championing women in the health and medical research fields.

The inaugural Members Connect event will be hosted by Organon, a the only global healthcare company of its size focused primarily on the health and wellbeing of women, at their Sydney office.

Managing Director of Organon ANZ, Nirelle Tolstoshev, says that the global healthcare company believes in this series’ ability to “drive real change” by investing in women in the sector. 

“Just 34 per cent of CEO and Head of Organisation roles in our biopharmaceutical sector are held by women – and whilst women tend to be well represented in middle management, they seem to be passed over for more senior opportunities,” says Tolstoshev. 

“At Organon, we believe that by investing in the bright pipeline of innovators and empowering these women through collaborations such as these, we can drive real change in this area.”

Following the Federal Government’s Senate Inquiry into Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and the recent announcement of an Australian-first inquiry into women’s pain in Victoria, the initiative’s goal to support women in the health and medical research sector is particularly critical. 

The Members Connect meetups are free to attend, and those who participate will be able to contribute to emerging women’s health priorities. Franklin Women and Organon say the events will “be instrumental in breaking down silos between different stakeholders and contributing to the improvement of health outcomes in communities”.

Interested members can register for Members Connect meetups here. 

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The threat comes in response to the right to disconnect laws, which allow workers to take their employers to the Fair Work Commission if they are penalised for failing to respond to out-of-hours contact.  

So is the right to “disconnect” really a victory for the so-called “anti-work culture” movement and a concession to the lazy workers of Australia? Is this the end of productivity as we know it?

Hardly. Rather, it’s an evolution of our times.

Just because we have the tech to be constantly on and available doesn’t mean bosses should expect to receive an immediate response to emails, texts and other forms of messaging. The now archaic Blackberry only found widespread adoption in the past 20 years, while the iPhone was first released in 2007 and arrived in major markets in 2009. Before that, most workers may have been sent emails out of hours, but they didn’t actually receive them until they logged into work, which for many would be at 9am the next morning.

But bosses seem to believe they have given enough away on flexibility to concede on putting limitations around what they can expect from workers outside of the hours they’re being paid to actually work.

Innes Willox, the chief executive of the Australian Industry Group representing big business in Australia, has issued a warning in The Australian newspaper that businesses are preparing for the new laws and, “unfortunately for employees, many are indicating that flexibilities in workplaces such as leaving early to pick up the kids or going to the dentist will be cut back.” 

He says that “flexibility cuts both ways and if employees want to play hardball, they can expect their employer to react accordingly. All of this is both sad and unfortunate.” 

Meanwhile, Opposition leader Peter Dutton is pursuing a curious election strategy, declaring he will repeal reforms and return the right for employers to expect a response from workers when they contacted outside of work hours.

While flexibility has also come a long way in recent years, it’s provided more options for workers to balance work and care responsibilities (across some industries) but it hasn’t cut down the number of hours they’re working. 

Seven in ten workers reported working outside their scheduled hours in a 2022 survey by The Australian Institute. For those that do report doing overtime, almost half (44 per cent) said they were “often” putting in additional hours to meet employer expectations. Thirty-eight per cent of workers said that overtime was an expectation in their workplace. 

And what does all this overtime do to Australians? It results in physical tiredness, according to a third (35 per cent) of workers, as well as stress and anxiety (32 per cent) and being mentally drained (31 per cent). 

Out of work interruptions also affect relationships. They can get in the way of family time and see people cancelling plans with family and friends. Ultimately, one could argue this “always on” mindset might be contributing to poorer physical and mental health outcomes for Australians and even to the loneliness epidemic, given just how much work interruptions have crossed into time otherwise reserved for hobbies, fitness, connecting with friends, spending time with family. How does that make for a productive Australia? 

Rates of psychological distress among young people have more than doubled since 2011 according to new HILDA figures out today, with 42.3 per cent of those aged 15 to 24 reporting they were psychologically distressed. This age group also now accounts for the highest proportion of people reporting loneliness. This group also includes those most likely to be starting a new career, working in more junior positions with less autonomy over their role.

There is still much more to be considered in these new laws; understandably, employers seek to know exactly how they’ll work.

But giving workers a “right to disconnect” won’t kill Australia’s productivity. Rather, it might just improve the lives and outcomes of Australians and their families.

The post Want to ignore emails outside work hours? Then forget flexibility! appeared first on Women's Agenda.

According to the government, the round saw 697 expressions of interest applications that were assessed by an Independent Assessment Committee made up of successful women entrepreneurs.

Launched by the Morrison government in 2020 and headed by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR), the initiative offers grants to help women-led businesses scale into domestic and global markets. 

In order to be eligible, the startup has to be at least 51 per cent women owned and led.

The total grant funding available is $11.6 million for this round. Here’s a rundown of the startups who’ll be receiving a slice of the pie. 

Successful grant recipients, Round 3 of Boosting Female Founders Initiative

Accessi Group Pty Ltd, $400,000

Project Title: Achieving global expansion of Credit Risk Management Software Platforms

Access Intell’s project is developing a credit risk software to protect businesses from bad debts. Businesses struggle to manage debtors ledgers across disjointed systems with limited access to cost effective credit intelligence. Access Intell aggregates data from multiple sources and integrates with business systems to deliver a continuous risk assessment on every customer.

The grant funding will allow the business to scale-up, expand into global markets, become self-sufficient and create jobs and wealth for Australia.

Bestie Kitchen Pty Ltd, $249,600

Project Title: Scale Pet Supplement & Sustainable Food Range

Bestie Kitchen has commercialised intellectual property developed with CSIRO, to make a unique form of nutraceutical gummy chews for pets. This tapped into a growing market for pet supplements.

The key project activities will grow awareness and customer acquisition in Australia, secure distribution with key distributors and retail chains and penetrate key export markets in Asia.

Black Box Trading Company Pty Ltd, $400,000

Project Title: Farming tools driven by data

Black Box Trading is providing analytics to the agricultural supply chain. The project funding from this grant is key to the product vertical, as Black Box have ambitions to build livestock dashboards to help farmers, feed-lots and processors with decisions derived from their database of 3.5 million animals.

Black Box’s service is aimed at working across the beef supply chain, from the paddock to grocery shelves to aggregate data, apply machine learning, and give each stakeholder insights into their livestock.

Butter Insurance Pty Ltd, $400,000

Project Title: Scaling Butter Insurance – Revolutionising Contents Insurance

Butter Insurance is revolutionising the way young Australians access, purchase and manage insurance. The project will focus on commercialising technology enabling data-lead instant quote and bind processes, flexible single-item policies and cost-effective pricing without lock-in contracts across key distribution channels. Butter’s goal is to bridge the insurance gap for the critically underinsured Australian renters’ market and under 35’s.

Compassion Creamery Pty Ltd, $270,000

Project Title: Retail Ready Launch of Compassion Creamery’s Award-Winning Oat Creme Cheese

Compassion Creamery is looking to scale their Oat Creme Cheese operations by increasing in-house manufacturing capability in Australia, as well as build commercial capacity including increasing shelf life through formulation alterations. Compassion Creamery will allow hundreds of foodservice outlets to contribute to the expansion and acceptance of plant-based alternatives in the market; ultimately driven by the urgent need of creating a more sustainable and ethical food system.

Driveschool Enterprises Pty Ltd, $300,000

Project Title: myDRIVESCHOOL® – social & global

myDRIVESCHOOL® is an award winning road safety program to teach people how to drive online, using simulation, gaming and artificial intelligence (AI). With BFF funding we will develop additional learning modules to address behavioural change and combine all for global markets.

Education Ontrack Pty Ltd, $462,833

Project Title: Flohh Assessment Platform Scaling and Integration

The project for Education Ontrack will focus on integrating Flohh’s online essay marking platform into School Management Systems (SMS) and Learning Management Systems (LMS) to facilitate student data transfer and eliminate double-handling for teachers. This will also enable the business to scale internationally and enhance product performance.

Evolve Communities Pty Ltd, $443,100

Project Title: Accelerating Allyship & Reconciliation supporting Statement of the Heart

Evolve Communities is a majority Indigenous owned, female-founded organisation that teaches Practical Reconciliation and Allyship. The project will expand their unique frameworks, educational resources, multi modal delivery, accreditation and licensing programs to make their training and accreditation the gold standard for professionals and organisations in Australia.

Fonz Moto Pty Limited, $393,847

Project Title: Fonz Moto – Australian designed & made EV motorcycles market expansion

Fonz Moto designs, builds, sells and rides electrifying two-wheel motorcycles & road-scooters for the future of mobility. The project boasts a highly innovative Australian designed and manufactured product that has disrupted the Sydney market, and will continue its rapid growth both locally and overseas.

Future Anything Pty Ltd, $294,150

Project Title: Future Anything Enterprising Education Applied Learning Platform

Future Anything’s project will transform teacher-led enterprise education programs into a new student facing applied learning EdTech experience.

The project will create an innovative new standalone product that will enable Future Anything to scale rapidly and sustainably into the domestic and international market.

Gaykamangu, Liandra; $437,500

Project Title: Liandra Swim International Expansion

Liandra Swim is a premium fashion brand that focuses on sustainability whilst celebrating Indigenous Australian culture. Liandra Swim presents contemporary fashion collections showcasing hand-drawn signature prints.

The theme of each collection links the audience to a carefully considered narrative through the ancient Indigenous art of storytelling. The project will support the expansion and diversity of available swimwear inventory into the domestic and international market.

Givvable Pty Ltd, $397,600

Project Title: Givvable – helping businesses reach their sustainability targets, faster

Givvable has developed an artificial intelligence-powered software as a service (SaaS) platform for businesses to discover and track the sustainability attributes of suppliers mapped to widely-used reporting frameworks. The project will leverage existing local distribution partnerships to expand further into the domestic and international market.

Grant’d Pty Ltd, $382,122

Project Title: Grant’d 2.0 Automating and Scaling The Personalised Grant’d Experience

This project will create a subscriber based platform that automates our unique grants service, transforming Grant’d into a scalable tech based business. This investment will boost the scalability of Grant’d by eliminating our current manual processes and removing cost barriers for users through: A purpose-built Software as a Service (SaaS) platform using generative AI to deliver and maintain Grant’ds vision to become the go-to digital solution for grant seekers in Australia and globally.

Lactamo Holdings Pty Ltd, $365,000

Project Title: Scaling-up Lactamo to respond to demand nationally and internationally.

Lactamo is a world first in MedTech innovation for breastfeeding. Lactamo uniquely combines temperature, movement and compression to address the common breastfeeding problems. Independently clinically validated and IP protected, Lactamo is both proactive and reactive for breastfeeding.

The project will focus on 3 key activities consisting of marketing (domestically and internationally), the expansion of the team, and operational expansion support to facilitate growth, creating a secure foundation for the core business areas.

Leap4ward.ai Pty Ltd, $399,600

Project Title: Tech development of artificial intelligence-enabled virtual health coach

LeapForward.ai’s project is an artificial intelligence-enabled application that supports injured individuals to recover from a compensable injury or illness. The minimum viable product’s core function will implement a chatbot (“Virtual Health Coach”), which delivers virtual support and responds to users with scripted responses deployed via basic algorithms.

The project will utilise advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand the user’s expression, tone and sentiment.

Life Skills Group Pty Ltd, $300,000

Project Title: Develop an SDK to integrate wellbeing data and tools into web-based systems

Life Skills’ project is a Software Development Kit that allows the integration of existing wellbeing data collection, measurement and analysis tools into third party applications. It is a platform to measure the emotional wellbeing of students.

Lush Organic Hair & Spa Forest Glen Pty Ltd, $150,000

Project Title: Penny Black Organic hair products – domestic and global expansion

Lush Organic Hair trades as Penny Black Organic (PBO) and is the only Certified Green Salon in the Southern Hemisphere. Lush Organic has developed 16 certified organic hair products.

The project will focus on scale manufacturing and organic packaging, product range expansion for direct customer sales both domestically and early international sales, recruitment of skilled management team to implement brand awareness and marketing.

Maxme Pty Ltd, $380,599

Project Title: Hodie+: Powering the Great Reconnection in the Digital Age

Maxme’s project is an immersive and digitally-enhanced human skill development learning experience underpinned by a digital learning application, empowering individuals to take control of their skills, careers, and futures, driving retention and engagement in the small to medium sized enterprises market. The gamified solution bridges the gap between employees and their jobs, integrated into daily work life through the application.

Meditati Pty Ltd, $330,000

Project Title: Commercialisation of tampon innovation to disrupt the FemCare market

The project will undertake Multi-Cultural Research for the commercialisation of a revolutionary applicator to disrupt the FemCare market. Key activities for the project are to create Go-To-Market brand, web-based education for schools and health practitioners. The project is developing a revolutionary soft applicator insertion solution. The New Zealand market pilot study will refine the go-to-market strategy for the Australian release.

Mettleaje Pty Ltd, $225,995

Project Title: Scaling Thirsty Turtl skincare boosts global Indigenous extracts market

Thirsty Turtl is an Australian skincare startup that launched in December 2022 with three products. The project will focus on growing the global market for Indigenous-sourced Australian native plant extracts.

This will be achieved through product expansion, sales growth via domestic and export-focused distributors, more efficient manufacturing and employment of specialised staff to build brand awareness.

MIIROKO Pty Ltd, $400,000

Project Title: MIIROKO’s establishment and expansion into Japan

MIIROKO’s innovative vegan hair colour formula is free from ammonia, resorcinol, and paraphenylenediamine, empowering women with affordable access to salon-quality hair colour that is both gentle on their hair and environmentally friendly.

The project will focus on enhancing its digital capabilities, establishing a robust back-end team, and securing investment to leverage existing organic growth within the domestic market to scale into the lucrative Asian market, beginning with Japan.

Mineral Fox Pty Ltd, $262,500

Project Title: Mineral Fox National Expansion

Mineral Fox exists to help people return to nature and is a supplier of innovative, Australian-made natural plasters and renders that provide a sustainable, healthy a beautiful alternative to conventional wall coatings.

This project will support accelerated national expansion through additional headcount, systems, marketing and training.

More Good Days Pty Ltd, $396,318

Project Title: Digital Evidence-Based Pain Management Program for Fibromyalgia

This project will accelerate the build of MoreGoodDays pain management digital platform, and help accelerate growth across Australia and internationally.

Neomorph Pty Ltd, $300,000

Project Title: NeoMorph – An innovative mouldable alternate to the dental-made mouthguard

NeoMorph Prodigy is an innovative over-the-counter, re-mouldable alternative to the dental-made mouthguard. The patent pending design, interlocks a dual polymer combination to provide a mouthguard that is securely custom fitting, protective and comfortable, to address the current concerns of end-users and the Australian Dental Association.

Our Trace Pty Ltd, $400,000

Project Title: Automate carbon footprinting for SMEs to scale in Australia and overseas

This project will focus on automating the process of collecting data from businesses and enhancing the accuracy and useability of the carbon inventory to power decarbonisation and enable Trace to scale. By integrating with technology that companies use every day, such as spreadsheets, accounting and travel management software, Trace can gather data required to measure, reduce and track emissions and establish channel partnerships with third parties already servicing our target customer.

Parking Spotz Pty Ltd, $388,917

Project Title: Parking Spotz – Electric Vehicle (EV) charging market expansion and execution of growth plan

Parking Spotz is developing an integrated hardware and software solution that automates parking bay security and optimises usage, turnover, and a return on investment through data-driven insights for electric vehicle (EV) charging bays.

The project will focus on product integration with new EV Charging partners, optimise and automate manufacturing processes for scaled production, execute sales growth plan with the recruitment of specialised management team and launch new data analytic modules to deliver valuable insights and position us as leaders in parking and EV data analytics.

 Pixii Pty Ltd, $133,740

Project Title: Changing women’s experience everywhere by bringing equality to bathrooms.

The project will result in a second generation dispenser for Pixii organic period products being brought to market, including new tech-enabled capabilities for stock monitoring and automated re-ordering. This will enable more building and facility managers to offer period products as part of their fundamental hygiene suppliers to staff and guests, just like soap and toilet paper.

The Paw Grocer Pty Ltd, $400,000

Project Title: Scaling for Expansion in the Domestic and Export Premium Pet Food Markets

The multi-faceted project will scale The Paw Grocer in both domestic and export markets. The grant funding will be used to improve our manufacturing capability & production efficiency, implement an inventory management system, and bring new products to market.

The One Two Pty Ltd, $362, 521

Project Title: The OneTwo domestic and global expansion

The OneTwo creates an easy bra shopping experience with hyper-personalised e-commerce, including a proprietary world-leading fit algorithm and innovative products.

The project aims to accelerate revenue growth in two years through commercialisation into the domestic and international market, as well as investments into intellectual property and technology.

Theratrak Pty Ltd, $150,000

Project Title: Theratrak, scale-up and market expansion to support the disability sector

Theratrak is developing an innovative online and mobile application based tool for therapists working with children with disabilities. Theratrak will support a wider cohort of people living with a disability, such as adults living with autism, intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy and other physical and mental health challenges.

Theratrak will support a wider cohort of people living with a disability, such as adults living with autism, intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy and other physical and mental health challenges.

Vapar Innovation Pty Ltd, $300,000

Project Title: Innovative AI sewer technology expansion to the USA

Vapar Innovation is developing artificial intelligence for sewer technology expansion into the United States of America. Vapar will implement a channel strategy to reach early adopter customers and set up sales operations internationally.

VETNexus Pty Ltd, $200,000

Project Title: Bridging the National Digital Skills Gap: Leave no-one behind

VETNexus has developed a Digital Literacy Licence (DLL) which is a suite of online courses with digital badges. These badges can be displayed on a participant’s social media profile and resume to verify their skills when applying for employment.

The DLL takes participants on a journey of discovery and decision making, actively engaging with the concepts covered to ensure they have developed the full range of foundational digital skills by the time they complete their full DLL.

The project will include digital skills roadshows, marketing materials, learning content to promote and raise awareness of digital literacy.

X-Hemp Pty Ltd, $480,000

Project Title: Scaling X-Hemp, Building Homes, Elevating Women, Capturing Carbon

X-Hemp uses waste agricultural materials and purpose planted crops to make environmentally-friendly hemp building products.

The project aims to deliver synergistic investments in people and processes, equipment and business enabling infrastructure, new product development, branding, marketing and new market activation.

Zondii Pty Ltd, $427,000

Project Title: Zondii Wool Scanning Device + Female Leaders Project

Zondii’s technology goes beyond human senses to measure the true value of food and fibre. The prototype is currently in on-farm beta trials and its application in wool measurement has attracted a growing waitlist.

The Zondii Wool Scanning Device + Female Leaders Project will fund an industrial design and refinement process; product launch in Australia and New Zealand; and professional development for Zondii’s female leaders.

This project will establish Zondii as a financially sustainable female founded startup, with a commercial product in domestic and global markets, and will provide economic growth for wool growers, improved earning potential for women, and job creation internally and within the industry broadly.

The post Meet the 34 grant recipients sharing in the $11.6 million Boosting Female Founders Initiative appeared first on Women's Agenda.

In the midst of hype around AI increasing productivity or stealing jobs , there is one role that many women would be more than happy for it to take on: the mental load of managing a family. 

The need for innovation in coping with the mental load of family admin is never more apparent than at the beginning of the school year. The sheer volume of work required to keep our lives in check is utterly overwhelming. It is no wonder parents are burning out.

It is baffling that when it comes to the multitude of apps, emails, WhatsApps and group chats for our home lives, many parents have no help beyond a shared calendar on the fridge.

I even commonly hear that parents just switch off all notifications on WhatsApp and push school emails to a different inbox folder just to try and ease the mental load by not reading it at all.

In my professional life, the prospect of AI to increase our personal productivity, that of our teams, and even our products was intriguing and exciting.

Faced with stark differences between what was available professionally and the lack of options at home, my co-founder and husband, Mike Fraser, and I knew that needed to change.

Technology is creating overwhelm

In my household, Mike and I share the “doing” work of parenting quite evenly, but when it comes to things like Book Week, what’s happening when, and joining all the dots, that’s on me. 

Statistics prove I’m not alone. It is disproportionately women who hold 70% of the household mental load and are burning out from the sheer volume of life admin required to manage kids. Almost 50 per cent say there isn’t enough time to get everything done.

In 2021, the AIFS survey asked 2920 people, “who in your household plans and coordinates activities relating to your children?”. It found almost no instances of the male taking this on – being the one who usually or always does it, while only 1 in 5 households shared the mental load.

Innovating to solve this, even at least partly, is important. It is why CEOs have personal assistants, and why Annabel Crabb’s The Wife Drought is still relevant 10 years after she wrote it.

Starting and then exiting same-day flower delivery business LVLY, and now launching Goldee, the AI assistant for parents, I can say with conviction that the work of managing a family is akin to running a business.

If we can innovate for even small productivity gains in the workplace, we need to do the same to give back time and headspace to the parents who are simply struggling to keep up with technology that was supposed to help them. Parents need personal assistants, too – and that’s where AI presents exciting opportunities.

How AI can give parents back time

Solutions are thin on the ground. A simple internet search on easing the mental load provides vague help such as “practice self-care” (with what free time?) and “physically writing down everything in your head and delegating” (again, with that free time?!).

As AI becomes mainstream, there is a global focus on governance and risks including gender bias within AI, noting that the technology will hold the same bias as its programmers. The kind of products being developed using AI often reflect the dominance of men in the technology space. I believe it is important that the huge gains to be had using AI are also focused on reducing inequalities.

We don’t claim that the AI we’re developing at Goldee will make the mental load completely vanish (sorry!). But AI tools can and should be created so that  any parent can easily take the lead and start forwarding kid-related activities to an AI personal assistant for busy families. This is the kind of innovation that will help  shift the weight and make the invisible load visible.

As with productivity tools in the workplace the hidden volume of work, appointments and organisation, and all those tiny to-dos that normally get carried around in the woman’s head will be extracted and put into an action list, ready for anyone to help with.

Importantly, AI created by women to solve our unique problems means we will have tools to stop us from feeling like it’s easier to just keep doing everything ourselves.

That means more time for doing things we enjoy, more time to connect with our partners (rather than fight over who did what), and more time to spend with our kids rather than on your phone trying to find that piece of info. And that’s an AI-driven future all parents can get on board with.

Goldee is currently in limited release and available to parents with an invite code – parents that would like to be invited can head to Goldee.ai to get their invite.

The post How a new AI assistant for parents can help carry women’s mental load appeared first on Women's Agenda.

The startup, formerly known as EasyRent, provided subletting options in New Zealand and Sydney, before pivoting the business to expand in New York City.

Earlier this year, Kiki announced it would be launching a “girls only” club in the US city in an Instagram post, a decision that received significant backlash.

On Wednesday, Toby Thomas-Smith spoke in an Instagram video posted on Kiki’s account, addressing the situation from last month.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kiki Club (@kikiclub.nyc)

“I have a lot to own and apologise for, since putting out that post four weeks ago,” Thomas-Smith said.

The co-founder first apologised to the people who found the decision “offensive and disrespectful”.

“I was extremely naive referring to Kiki as the first girls club in NYC and for not articulating the true reasons behind this direction,” he said.

When it was first announced, the Kiki co-founders cited the hire of its first female worker as the reason behind the decision, who “enlightened” the all-male founding team on the supposed problem of women meeting women in NYC.

“It was incredibly offensive to all the women founders who’ve been working and researching to improve the safe environments for women to live in,” Thomas-Smith said in his apology.

According to Kiki and Blackbird, the venture capital fund that invested in Kiki, women comprised 70 per cent of Kiki users. Thomas-Smith said it is women who engages with the subletting company the most, which encouraged the group to pursue the “girls only” club.

However, Thomas-Smith said the startup’s time in NYC so far has “lacked the special feeling” and the “strong level of connection in the community” that they had in Sydney.

“We’re still ultimately committed to subletting and our mission of changing how the world lives, but because we’ve been missing the connection piece, this has required our full focus the past few weeks,” he said.

“Again, I’m deeply sorry for how I went about communicating this focus in such a poor way. I won’t make these same mistakes again in the future.”

Blackbird’s response

Venture capital funds have a significant gender problem. In 2023, just four per cent of startup funding went to all-female teams in 2023, with all-male teams continuing to dominate across all deals done.

At the time of Kiki’s announcement, a lot of backlash was directed at Blackbird, Australia’s largest venture capital fund. Blackbird invested a 16 per cent stake in the all-male founded startup when it was based in Sydney and known as EasyRent.

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Many commentators criticised Blackbird’s lack of response since the saga. But four weeks later, General Partner at Blackbird Ventures Samantha Wong released a statement on behalf of the company.

Her statement addressed the criticism surrounding the gender issue in Kiki and in VC funding in general, one Blackbird is “committed to improving”.

“As a former female founder who struggled to raise venture funding for her startup, and as a female general partner who has raised $160M over two separate funds for the New Zealand Blackbird funds that I run, I am empathetic to the challenge of fundraising as a woman,” Wong said.

“I can fully appreciate the frustration at inequity in funding for female founders that I saw in commentary on this story.”

Wong firstly clarified “a few facts” in relation to Kiki’s girls only club.

“Despite what you may have read, Blackbird did not back a women’s club, nor did Kiki ‘fail’ in Sydney,” Wong said. 

“We, along with numerous other investors, invested in Kiki to expand its subletting platform, off the back of its strong traction in Sydney, where it was known as ‘EasyRent’.

“At the time of our investment of 16%, EasyRent had been live in Sydney for 12 months, was essentially bootstrapped and was profitable.”

Kiki then made the “bold and risky” move to expand its business in NYC and “own the subletting category globally”, which Wong said has a “logical basis”.

“Women made up 70% of Kiki users in Sydney, but when they moved to New York, they experienced an imbalance of supply and demand, and didn’t have the ‘community magic’,” Wong said.

“As we all know, startup founders experiment and learn and sometimes adjust as they go. They do not always get everything 100% right. We see it as our role to provide support to them through the learning, shifting, ups and downs of the startup journey. 

“So that’s where our focus has been working with Kiki over the last few weeks.”

In 2022, Blackbird invested in 22 companies; 23 per cent of those companies had at least one woman founder in the founding team.

“While this is broadly in line with industry standards, it’s nowhere near where we want it to be,” Wong said. 

“We are committed to continuing to provide transparent reporting about our progress, acknowledging that we need to do better.”

Blackbird has several programs designed to mentor, coach and develop more women startup founders.

“There is much more work to do, and we’re committed to doing it,” Wong said. “We will continue doing our part to build an ecosystem we can all be proud of.”

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