site.bta Women's Business Community Social Accelerator to Support Female Entrepreneurship in Bulgaria

The Women's Business Community (WBC) will support the development of female entrepreneurship in Bulgaria as a social accelerator.

"This community was born thanks to the efforts of many entrepreneurial ladies in Bulgaria who have been working for years to ensure that Bulgarian women, women in business, take their rightful place in our society and that their status is visible enough in Bulgaria and in Europe," Victoria Karaabova - Stoyanova, Co-chair of the Entrepreneurship and Startup Council at the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and member of the WBC Executive Board, told a news conference at the BTA National Press Club here on Friday.

"This is Europe's first social accelerator for women interested in entrepreneurship. All women who would like to develop projects, products and services and want to build themselves as leaders are free to join," she added.

The Fourth National Mentoring Programme for Female Entrepreneurs will be implemented from January to June 2024, it emerged at the news conference. The initiative is practice-oriented and designed to help women across the country start their own businesses. It is organized by the Entrepreneurship and Startup Council and the For Good Examples in Business Foundation. The closing event of the Programme will be a forum on female entrepreneurship on June 8.

Karaabova said that over 30 women have signed up for the Fourth Programme and 20 more can do so until the end of January 2024. Since the mentoring programme was launched in 2021, 150 women have taken part in it.

"The organizer found in a survey that 67% of the women who went through the programme are already developing their own successful projects, have products, have located funding, and are currently on the employers' market; 23% of them have put off their entrepreneurial pursuits for some reason but have not given up; and only 7% have not yet mustered the courage to assert themselves," Karaabova added.

Gena Sabeva, who is WBC Chair, Entrepreneurship and Startup Council Co-chair, and initiated the National Mentoring Program for Female Entrepreneurs, said via video conference that 21 female mentors will share in the 2024 mentoring programme. She added that a four-month Applied Entrepreneurship Programme will be launched in March 2024 in partnership with the University of National and World Economy. "The programme is intended for people in business and is open to everyone, not just women," Sabeva said, adding that it will focus on ways to start and upgrade a business and achieve high market goals.

Another WBC Executive Board member, Ilona Staneva, said that Fibank's Smart Lady Business Programme also supports female entrepreneurs. She cited surveys conducted at the launch of the programme and while it was in progress showing that Bulgarian female entrepreneurs start their own businesses at 40-45, older than female entrepreneurs in Europe who start their own businesses shortly after graduating from university or secondary school. "In Bulgaria, we develop and implement our ideas later. We would really like to inspire Bulgarian women who want to be entrepreneurs to start earlier," Staneva said.