TWEET THIS: Dell announces 2016 #WECities Index, ranking top 25 cities for women entrepreneurs #DWEN

PALO ALTO, California – June 22, 2016 – Today at the White House’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit, Dell announced findings of the 2016 Women Entrepreneur Cities Index (WE Cities), revealing the top 25 global cities fostering high potential women entrepreneurs (HPWE).  WE Cities is the only global gender-specific index that looks at a city’s ability to attract and foster growth in firms founded by women entrepreneurs. Cities, instead of countries, were identified in order to show the impact of local policies and programs in addition to national laws and customs.

Findings from WE Cities will be used as a springboard for conversation and change at the seventh annual Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network Summit (DWEN)—a global gathering of 200 of the top female entrepreneurs, business leaders, media and Dell partners that is set to take place in Cape Town, South Africa, June 27-28, 2016. The theme for this year’s summit is “Innovate for a Future-Ready World”.

“Innovation and job creation by women entrepreneurs is critical for a thriving global economy, yet our research shows some cities and countries are doing far more than others to encourage and support this important subset of the startup community,” said Karen Quintos, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Dell. “Our index provides insights to move the conversation with policymakers and city leaders from awareness to action and, in turn, to empower women entrepreneurs to have the greatest economic impact on the world.” 

"Women entrepreneurs are our Country's best bet for economic growth,” said Elizabeth Gore, entrepreneur-in-residence for Dell. “It's time for women to be politically engaged to ensure the right ecosystems are in place for them to scale. If politicians and entrepreneurs partner, dynamic policies can be put in place to close the circle and enhance the process from idea to enterprise. WE Cities can be used as a diagnostic tool to help ensure lawmakers are listening to their needs.”

Top 25 WE Cities Ranking & Methodology

Building on the past four years of Dell’s research on HPWE, five important categories of city characteristics were identified: capital, technology, talent, culture and markets.  These pillars were organized into two groups – operating environment and enabling environment. The overall rating has 70 indicators, and, of these, 44 have a gender-based component. Individual indicators were weighted based on four criteria: relevance, quality of underlying data, uniqueness in the index and gender component.