Women’s Forum Asia 2019 began on September 17th with the Youth & Leaders Forum, hosted at Facebook Singapore under the theme Taking the Lead: Our Future Belongs to All of Us. We were thrilled to welcome over 100 young leaders who have taken initiative in the region and beyond. 

The Youth & Leaders Forum opened with remarks by Sandhya Devanathan, Managing Director at Facebook Singapore, and Chiara Corazza, Managing Director of the Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society. 

Attendees were then inspired by a talk by Sim Ann, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry of Communications and Information, Republic of Singapore. Her talk was followed by an interactive Q&A with attendees. 

The day continued with panels such as A generation disrupted: Our Call, Our Planet, Our Future; Evolving Knowledge: Future skills and education; Youth pioneering inclusive and sustainable development; Diversity in tech: shaping the gender balance of tomorrow; and the Secret Ingredient: What does it take to be a great leader? To learn more about the sessions, you can find the programme here. 

The Accelerate HER Start-up Pitch Competition was organized in partnership with Facebook, La French Tech, INSEAD Centre for Entrepreneurship and INSEAD Executive Education. The competition gave female-led start-ups the opportunity to access training, visibility and financing.

The winners were chosen by a prestigious jury composed of Sandhya Devanathan, Managing Director, Facebook Singapore; Cliff Go, CEO of Swaen Capital; Delphine Marcais, Executive Director, Women’s Forum; Amel Rigneau, Founder of DigitalMind Media, Co-leader of Women In FrenchTech; Wanying Zhang, Investment Manager, Qualgro Partners 

The winners are: 

Verleen Goh, Alchemy FoodTech 

Shubhangi and Jesselina Rana, Pad2Go 

Angela Conroy, Notarum 

And a special mention was given to: Chit Aein Thu, CCEducate 

Join us at the Women’s Forum Global Meeting (November 20-22 in Paris) to meet the winners!