The Henkel Xathon, an ideation hackathon for female founders, is taking place for the third time. The aim is to promote female entrepreneurs and talents in the technology industry, strengthen their business innovation and support them in building a relevant business network. The Xathon will take place in Berlin from November 12 to 14, 2021 as a hybrid event* in English. It is hosted by Henkel dx Ventures, Henkel’s platform for open innovation and collaboration, together with Global Digital Women.
One focus this year is on the rapidly accelerating D2C sector, influenced by changing consumer behaviors towards hyper-personalization across all channels.
At the Xathon, participants can take part in live workshops at four different locations in Berlin and digitally, watch keynotes, collaborate with top female experts, and further develop their business ideas. A total of 100 female talents will get the opportunity to participate in this year’s hackathon. Interested female founders can apply until October 10 at https://www.henkel.com/dx/xathon-2021. The main event partner of the Xathon 2021 is Global Digital Women. Further partners include SAP.iO and Microsoft.
‘Diversity and gender equity are of strategic importance to us at Henkel. With the Xathon, we want to empower female entrepreneurship and support talented women in realizing their ideas and unfolding their full potential,’ says Sylvie Nicol, Chief Human Resources Officer at Henkel.
The Female Founder Monitor 2020 once again showed that targeted support for female founders is necessary: according to this, only 15.7 percent of all founders in Germany are female. Women entrepreneurs are particularly rare in the technology sector.
‘The figures show that the road to equality in the tech industry is still long. But there is much more than just figures: every year at our Xathon we see impressive and great ideas from female founders. For us, it is a privilege to experience and support this female entrepreneurial power in tech,’ says Michael Nilles, Chief Digital & Information Officer at Henkel. ‘I am truly convinced that innovation is built on diversity. That’s why we are very much looking forward to welcome 100 female founders and their early-stage business models.’
