DivERS is finalist for University Start-up World Cup 2021. DivERS is the only Danish start-up representative competing in the digital category.In University Start-up World Cup competition, the best impact-based university start-ups from around the world come together. The finalists are working towards making an impact in the world. This will be year seven for University Start-up World Cup, where impact-based start-ups from around the world pitch for a chance to win 15,000 € but most importantly be part of a global network. The final competition will be hosted by Venture Cup China in Beijing, on December 3.You can find all the finalists here: https://venturecup.dk/uswc/
Venture Cup Denmark, is a national startup competition for the best and brightest startups that come from Danish universities. DivERS has attracted a lot of attention due to its potential for removing undesirable biases during recruitment in order to increase diversity and inclusion in workplaces. After being selected among top finalist startups, at a ceremony at IDA held on 24th June 2021, DivERS is awarded as the best digital startup among 5 other finalists. The award includes 10,000 DKK to boost their business, nomination for University Startup World Cup, and promotions in media and investor programs.
In 2018, the Innovation Fund launched a new initiative to promote a better gender balance in entrepreneurship and top research. As part of the initiative, the foundation has set up a group of eight female entrepreneurs and researchers affiliated with the foundation. The group has been named InnoWomen, and the eight women will both provide input to the foundation's own diversity policy and act as role models for potential applicants. Sara Shafiee is one of the eight InnoWomen: “I believe that diversity provides better research and innovation, and introducing role models is really important as part of achieving greater gender diversity. That is why I am extremely delighted to be part of this initiative”, she says.
POV international interviews Sara about her journey as a researcher and IT project manager. It's not fun to have to fight your way onto the stage, but if you stay there and take the fight, then you can end up winning. We established DivERS with the same goal to create required self-confidence for all people to be evaluated only based on their potentials and abilities rather than their gender, nationality, religion and etc.
Sara is interviewed by Science Report Denmark. Here, she talked about her belief that technology can be the cause of positive changes to human lives. She mentioned that “It’s pretty cool that you can have a tool that makes everything faster, cheaper and increases the quality of life for people - while at the same time it can create profit for a company”. At DivERS, we have the same mindset and we use technology to create a tool for improving and accelerating the recruitment process.
Sara is interviewed by Innovation Fund Denmark about her career and various challenges that she faced along her way to success. She specifically mentions unconscious biases as the most important challenges during education, recruitment and career. She believes that if more women are hired as lecturers at universities, more girls can be attracted into various STEM fields.
Sara is interviewed by DTU (Technical University of Denmark) newspaper about her vision on women’s problems in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). She discusses about lack of self-confidence in women, and how it affects their professional career. She also answers the question of how women can create the belief to push limits of their abilities? Sara tells her story as a woman in technology and shares her advices to younger women in order to gain more confidence in a male-dominant environment.
Sara is interviewed as Researcher of the Year 2018 by IT Watch, Denmark. The interview was due to Sara’s Innovation Fund award for IT solution that reduces month-long workflows down to just one hour. In this interview, Sara mentioned the importance of introducing female role models to encourage more girls into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). In addition, she talked about various hidden biases in our societies, that discourage girls to enter and continue in specific fields such as technology. As one of our goals at DivERS, we aim at eliminating these biases for different minorities such as women.
