DMZ Unveils 2024 Women Innovation Summit for Entrepreneurs

In honour of International Women's Day, the DMZ at Toronto Metropolitan University is planning its second annual Women Innovation Summit on March 7, 2024. The one-day event, hosted in DMZ's Toronto offices, aims to encourage and celebrate women entrepreneurs and their sympathizers.

The Women invention Summit will include a full day of activities aimed at encouraging connection and invention. This includes exclusive roundtable conversations with female entrepreneurs and industry partners, a pitch competition for female-led firms to acquire funding for the next stage of growth, and the announcement of the DMZ's Women of the Year award winners.

"Our 2024 Summit has been crafted to raise the bar, introducing new programming elements like our curated roundtable discussions," said Emily Smiley, Director of Partnerships and Investor Relations at DMZ. Our mission is to recognize and inspire female inventors and the advocates who support them."

Women Innovation Pitch Competition applications and nominations for DMZ's Women of the Year are now available at dmz.to/WIS.

For the second year, The Firehood, a nationwide network for women in technology, is working with DMZ, contributing $100,000 in financial contributions for the Women Innovation Pitch Competition. Claudette McGowan, CEO of Protexxa and Co-Founder of The Firehood, stressed the significance of angel investment for female entrepreneurs.

The Women Innovation Pitch Competition, available to female founders throughout Canada, will include pitch coaching sessions, marketing, public relations, and selected roundtable conversations. The top ten businesses will get the opportunity to pitch for cash investments to The Firehood's angel investors.

Danielle Graham, Co-Founder of The Firehood, highlighted her enthusiasm for the collaboration, saying, "Through our partnership with DMZ, we look forward to providing more leading women innovators with the connections, guidance, and capital from The Firehood to champion their fundraising efforts."

The DMZ Women of the Year award will highlight remarkable women who are making a difference in technology. Winners will get marketing and public relations possibilities, as well as an invitation to an exclusive DMZ Women of the Year brunch event.

Applications for the Women Innovation Pitch Competition and nominations for the DMZ's Women of the Year Award conclude on January 21, 2024. Apricotton, Areto Labs, and PragmaClin were among last year's winners, who received money during the first Women Innovation Summit.