Visa has launched the first Visa Everywhere Initiative: Women’s Global Edition to celebrate women from around the world to commemorate International Women’s Day. This aims to tackle Fintech and Social Impact challenges for a chance to win $100,000 in each of the two challenges. The final event will hold during the kick-off of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France, 2019.
“More than 163 million women around the world have started their own business in the last five years, accounting for up to 37% of the workforce. Women entrepreneurship is on the rise and Visa is committed to inspiring more women to break through barriers through platforms like the Visa Everywhere Initiative,” said Lynne Biggar, Chief Marketing and Communication Officer at Visa.
To participate, companies with at least one female founder are to submit solutions that tackle challenges facing the FinTech and Social Impact landscape through innovation. These solutions should answer these questions:
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Challenge 1 (FinTech): Leveraging your company’s unique capabilities, how could your solution help transform consumer, payments and/or commercial experiences locally, regionally or globally?
Challenge 2 (Social Impact): How can women entrepreneurs around the world drive social impact by supporting sustainable and equitable livelihoods and strengthen local/regional economies?
Program Highlights:
Open for submissions: March 6th, 2019
Applications due: April 14th, 2019
Regional finalists selected per region: May, 2019
Global Finals in Paris, France- June 7th, 2019
Eligible participants will be divided into 6 regions: North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe (excluding France), France, Africa/Middle East. Each region will send one winner per challenge to the finals in Paris.
Visa will launch a global marketing campaign “Together as One” to celebrate the Visa Everywhere Initiative: Women’s Global Edition. Eight former, women VEI winners and finalists, representing regions around the world will star in the campaign to help inspire their peers to participate in the competition and pursue their dreams of taking risks and building a successful business.
Since 2015, the Visa Everywhere Initiative has provided visionary solutions for commerce and payment challenges of tomorrow. The program has activated regionally in 75 countries and awarded more than 70 leading startups with monetary prizes, mentorship and access to Visa’s clients and partners. Now, for the first time, the program will shift from regionally-focused events to a worldwide program centered on FinTech and Social Impact to shine a spotlight on the millions of underrepresented women business leaders and Visa’s commitment to micro and small businesses catalyzing change.
For more information on the Visa Everywhere Initiative: Women’s Global Edition and all regional events within the Visa Everywhere Initiative as regards getting involved and general participation terms, click here.