The Techstars Startup Weekend Maldives Women's Edition will officially inaugurate on 4^th May and will go until 6^th May 2018.

Techstars is a worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Through the Techstars Worldwide Entrepreneur Network, founders and their teams connect with other entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders and corporate partners who will help their companies grow and allow entrepreneurs to accelerate the pace of innovation and do more faster. 

"Entrepreneurs are the leading drivers of prosperity, jobs and innovation, especially women entrepreneurs who bring particular sets of skills that not only set them apart from their male counterparts, but also lend themselves to being successful entrepreneurs. Without entrepreneurship, communities would cease to move forward within their local economies and in the world." Said Anurag Maloo, the Regional Manager for Techstars in South & Central Asia

"There are 5 essential ingredients - talent, density, culture, capital and regulatory environment, working together to create an environment for ideas to thrive and foster successful entrepreneurial ecosystems in the Maldives." Anurag added, believing that Maldives still has a long way to go but definitely it has a lot of potential.

Techstars Startup Weekend Maldives is an action-oriented, highly inspirational and experiential 54-hour program that brought together entrepreneurs, developers and experts from a multitude of industry sectors to come together to pitch an idea and launch a business, all in one weekend by turning ideas into reality.

The event is organised by the Techstars Community Leaders in the Maldives, supported by Allied Insurance Company of the Maldives Pvt Ltd, Male Aerated Water Company (MAWC), ALIA Investments Pvt Ltd and UNDP Youth Co:lab.

"The reason why we chose to do an edition for women was to provide potential women entrepreneurs the platform to discover their own potential as the future innovators of the country." Said Fathmath Neesha, the lead organiser of Startup Weekend Maldives who is also a former participant of the first Techstars Startup Weekend in the Maldives.

"During the first Techstars Startup Weekend Maldives, we noticed that there was a lack of women participation. So we wanted to provide that safe place for women to test out their ideas and show the world that Maldivian women are also as innovative as the men."

The local organising team has been able to pull together some of the best names in the Maldives as mentors for the participants, who have experienced the entrepreneurial life cycle and could support them in further strengthening the business ideas of the participants and build a strong product at the end of the day.

"Gatherings such as Startup Weekend helps young people to think about practical aspects of implementing an idea and form networks that would enable them to tackle some of these issues in entrepreneurship. A women's edition is essentially helpful to provide the emergence of women entrepreneurs in the country to perfect their skills" Says Asra Naseem, one of the marketing mentors this year for the Startup Weekend Maldives Women's Edition.

The Techstars Startup Weekend is the first international initiative to support and nurture the growth of startups in Maldives. Maldives is the newest addition to Techstars Startup Weekend program, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs and it has been successfully run over 160 countries in last 10 years.