Winter/Spring 2025 Research: Gender-gap Participatory Research Phase

Co-Authors: Rhea Alexander, Laura Martinez, Xenia Jankovich

Keywords: Gender Gap; AI bias; Female-Founder Funding, Systemic Bias, Strategic Design

Abstract:

As part of the longitudinal research project AI: Friend or Foe for Female-Identifying Founders?, led by ELab’s Director, Rhea Alexander, we conducted a series of stakeholder workshops aimed at identifying barriers and opportunities along the founder’s journey. Our goal was to explore where targeted interventions within the ecosystem could help close the funding gap for female and other marginalized entrepreneurs.

We held four workshops in total. The first two were discovery sessions that used backcasting and journey mapping methods, focusing on key stakeholder groups: investors, founders, and supporters such as incubators and accelerators. After synthesizing the findings, we conducted two additional workshops to collaboratively brainstorm viable interventions with stakeholders, based on the opportunities identified.

The results of this work are presented in this interim report.