NY-WEA
The Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator (WEA), today announced the global launch of its online entrepreneurship curriculum designed to inspire, educate, and empower women entrepreneurs around the world. The Online Entrepreneurship Certificate Programme was first announced during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 76) on the second anniversary of WEA.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220111005443/en/
WEA is a multi-stakeholder strategic partnership convening six United Nations agencies: International Labour Organization (ILO), International Trade Centre (ITC), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), UN Women, and Mary Kay. ITC is leading the capacity-building component of the multi-partnership.
Developed by ITC SheTrades and powered by Mary Kay in support of WEA, the guided Entrepreneurship Certificate Programme includes 27 interactive modules enriched with over 200 videos. The aim is to teach women entrepreneurs—aspiring or veteran—the skills to design and set up businesses that have potential to be economically viable. Participants will learn how to adopt an entrepreneurship culture, develop ideas through design thinking and lean start-up methodologies, prepare a business model canvas, design a pitch, identify sources of funding, find the right partners, arrange for mentorship, build a team, and set up their businesses.
The Certificate Programme covers the seven key stages of business development :
- Certificate 1: Deciding to Become an Entrepreneur (6 modules),
- Certificate 2: Developing the Idea – Business Ideation (3 modules),
- Certificate 3: Business Modelling (4 modules),
- Certificate 4: Pitching the Business (4 modules),
- Certificate 5: Funding the Venture (3 modules),
- Certificate 6: Building up the Team (4 modules),
- Certificate 7: Setting up the Business (3 modules).
The WEA Online Entrepreneurship Certificate Programme is now accessible at the fingertips of millions of women directly on the ITC SheTrades website (www.shetrades.com/en/learn/e-learning ) and on the WEA website. It is currently available in English, Spanish, and French, with Arabic, Russian and Mandarin coming in 2022. It is free for all users of shetrades.com with no barrier to entry. Participants will receive a certificate upon completion of each of the seven key stages of business development .
“The world needs more women entrepreneurs,” said Deborah Gibbins, Chief Operating Officer at Mary Kay Inc . “Almost half of all women entrepreneurs claim to be driven by the desire to contribute to the great societal good. Their impact can be immense. The WEA Online Entrepreneurship Certificate Programme is a game-changer for women and girls around the world. With the right tools and support, there’s no limit to what women can do.”
“We must increase women’s participation in international trade, helping them scale their businesses so that they become the catalysts for more inclusive and sustainable communities. Women are powerful agents of change – and empowering women benefits whole societies,” said Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Executive Director of the International Trade Centre .
An official launch event will be held on January 18, 2022, at 15:00 CET in collaboration with Mary Kay. It will convene women entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses from the ITC SheTrades network around the world. The event will be hosted virtually in English and will serve as a platform to present the Entrepreneurship Certificate Programme, and upcoming in-country trainings. The SheTrades team will present the entrepreneurship curriculum as well as other tools available on www.shetrades.com . Register here to the launch of WEA’s first free Entrepreneurship Certificate Programme.
The launch of the WEA Certificate Programme on the ITC SheTrades eLearning platform will also be supplemented at the national level with on-the-ground training for women from developing countries interested in entrepreneurship and/or planning to integrate into regional and global value chains. The in-country training sessions will provide practical insight and expertise to women entrepreneurs and MSMEs and will take place virtually in Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and India. The training sessions will be held in Spanish (Colombia, Mexico), Portuguese (Brasil) and English (India). Sessions will focus on two main topics: “Competitiveness and Export Readiness” (19-20 January) and “Digital Marketing and e-commerce workshops” (1-3 February).
The contribution falls under ITC's “Empowering Women to Trade Programme” which contributes directly to ITC’s focus area 5 “Promoting and Mainstreaming Inclusive and Green Trade” and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5, 8 and 17.
WEA has committed to empower 5 million women entrepreneurs by 2030.
About the Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator
The Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator (WEA) is a multi-partnership initiative on women’s entrepreneurship convening six United Nations agencies and Mary Kay. International Labour Organization (ILO), International Trade Centre (ITC), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Global Compact (UNGC), UN Women and Mary Kay have committed to empower 5 million women entrepreneurs by 2030. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to maximize the development impact of women entrepreneurship in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by creating an enabling ecosystem for women entrepreneurs around the world. The Accelerator exemplifies the transformational power of a multi-partnership of unique magnitude to harness the potential of women entrepreneurs. Learn more at we-accelerate.com
. Follow us: Twitter and Instagram (@we_accelerator), Facebook and LinkedIn (@womensentrepreneurshipaccelerator).
About ITC SheTrades
The International Trade Centre’s SheTrades initiative aims to connect three million women to market by 2021 and rallies stakeholders around the world to work together to address trade barriers and create greater opportunities for women entrepreneurs. It is supported by a web and mobile digital platform. For more information, please visit SheTrades.com: https://www.shetrades.com/en
.
About the International Trade Centre
The International Trade Centre is the joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. ITC assists small and medium-sized enterprises in developing and transition economies to become more competitive in global markets, thereby contributing to sustainable economic development within the frameworks of the Aid-for-Trade agenda and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. For more information, visit www.intracen.org
. Follow ITC on Twitter
| Facebook
| LinkedIn
| Instagram
| Flickr
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220111005443/en/
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
EMVCo Working on How Global Specifications Can Support Agentic Payments20.11.2025 17:38:00 CET | Press release
EMVCo – the technical body that creates and manages EMV® Specifications and programmes that enable seamless and secure card-based payments worldwide – has announced that it is working on how global specifications can support innovation in agentic payment solutions by increasing trust and interoperability across the ecosystem. Agentic commerce is rapidly reshaping the shopping experience by enabling AI agents to act on the consumer’s behalf. This is driving significant momentum for agentic payments, which introduce AI agents as new actors that can initiate transactions with merchants – without requiring direct involvement from the consumer. While agentic payments have the potential to increase convenience and personalisation, they present unique considerations for how transactions are initiated, authenticated and secured. As industry adoption and innovation accelerate, a globally interoperable and scalable approach may be beneficial in realising trusted agentic payments for consumers, m
Université Paris-Saclay and Owkin: A Unique Alliance to Propel University Medical Research to the Top of the European Rankings Through AI20.11.2025 15:17:00 CET | Press release
Université Paris-Saclay and Owkin announce the signing of a memorandum of understanding to explore the potential of K Pro Free - Owkin’s AI co-pilot for biology - for use by Paris-Saclay. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251120130113/en/ K Pro Free will now be available to the entire Université Paris-Saclay community, and in particular teachers, researchers and doctoral students working in the biomedical sciences. The partnership includes workshops, training sessions and events designed to promote the discovery and adoption of K Pro Free, as well as the co-organization of communication and dissemination initiatives around the use of AI in health. In this way, the partnership will promote user training, but also enrich and continuously improve the co-pilot's models through feedback and use cases from the l’Université Paris-Saclay community. This partnership is part of Université Paris-Saclay’s strategy to integr
Frasca Advances Flight Training Technology with New Visual System Powered by Unreal Engine20.11.2025 15:05:00 CET | Press release
Frasca International, Inc., a FlightSafety International company and leader in flight simulation, today announced the launch of VITAL FVS 100, the next evolution of its visual system technology. Building on the proven TruVision Global platform, VITAL FVS 100 was developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine and delivers unprecedented realism, scalability, and innovation in pilot training. The Unreal-powered VITAL FVS 100 system introduces major advancements in visual fidelity and training realism, further enhancing the capabilities of Frasca, a leading developer of flight simulators and training devices. The new system includes physically based renderings, advanced lighting effects, and a new volumetric cloud model that creates dynamic, weather-rich environments. Terrain imagery now includes one-meter resolution coverage for the contiguous United States and Hawaii, with expanded global datasets covering European buildings and tree covered regions. Additionally, enhanced particle effects re
GigaOm Radar for Vector Databases v3 Positions Vespa.ai as a Leader and Outperformer20.11.2025 15:00:00 CET | Press release
Vespa Recognized for Integrated Ranking, Multimodal Search, and Production-Scale AI Performance Vespa.ai, the creator of the AI Search Platform for building and deploying large-scale, real-time AI applications powered by big data, today announced its recognition as a Leader and Outperformer in the GigaOm Radar for Vector Databases v3, marking the company’s third consecutive year being evaluated in GigaOm’s vector database research. Now in its third edition, the report compares 17 leading open source and commercial solutions using GigaOm’s structured evaluation framework. In addition to core table-stakes capabilities, the Radar reviews each vendor’s key features, emerging strengths, and broader business criteria. The shift from Sonar to Radar reflects the technology’s transition into mainstream adoption. GigaOm names Vespa.ai a leader for its ability to manage complex data, optimize results at scale, and support multimodal AI workloads. The report highlights Vespa’s native tensor suppor
Hitit Empowers Airlines to Optimize Crew Leave Planning with Gurobi20.11.2025 15:00:00 CET | Press release
With Crane Crew, one of the products in Hitit’s Crane Solution Suite, dozens of airlines have reduced their planning periods from weeks to minutes. Gurobi Optimization, LLC, the leader in decision intelligence technology, is proud to be the solver of choice for Hitit, a leading global provider of airline and travel IT solutions. Hitit’s Crane Crew Leave Optimizer—one of the key sub-modules of Hitit’s Crane Crew solution—enables airlines to quickly generate optimal leave schedules for thousands of crew members. Powered by Gurobi’s mathematical optimization solver, the tool significantly reduces planning time while improving both operational efficiency and crew satisfaction. Among the many constraints that airlines must consider are operational requirements, business rules, crew seniority, and personal preferences. As such, manual planning efforts can often lead to inefficiencies, crew dissatisfaction, and compliance risks. After switching to Crane Crew, Hitit’s partner airlines have rep
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom