NEW DELHI, June 5, 2013- Dell today announced results of the world?s first gender-focused, global entrepreneurship index based on the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI) at its Dell Women?s Entrepreneur Network annual event.

The Gender-GEDI is the only global index to measure high-potential female entrepreneurship based on individual aspirations, business environments and entrepreneurial ecosystems. High-potential women entrepreneurs are defined as "innovative, market expanding and export oriented."

The positive impact that female entrepreneurs can have on countries with the foresight to empower them has been proven, and includes increased job creation and the generation of wealth. Yet most existing research in this field does not identify areas where countries should concentrate their efforts to remove barriers to female entrepreneurship such as access to the capital, technology, networks and knowledge needed to start and grow a business. The Gender-GEDI provides this unique contribution to understanding the development of high-potential female entrepreneurs worldwide supported by a diagnostic tool to help affect change.

Gender-GEDI is made up of 30 indicators and ranks 17 countries; Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Malaysia, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom and the United States. Top ranking countries scored consistently well across a range of indices.

The U.S. scored high on indicators for good institutional foundations and a strong entrepreneurial environment, placing it No.1 in the rankings. Other top-ranking countries include; Australia (No. 2), Germany (No. 3), France (No. 4) and Mexico (No. 5). However, despite India?s recent economic surge, it ranked No. 16. Other rankings include Japan (12), Morocco (13), Brazil (14) and Egypt (15), and Uganda (No. 17).

"Unleashing the power of female entrepreneurship can have a dramatic effect on a country?s economy. The research clearly supports the assertion that key things need to be fixed in order for female entrepreneurship to survive and flourish," said Karen Quintos, chief marketing officer (CMO) and senior vice president Dell. "Increased access to knowledge, networks, capital and technology are critical if countries are to empower female entrepreneurship and create a culture of success."

Index Highlights

No single determinant of success
Top performing countries including the U.S. (No. 1) and Mexico (No. 5) scored consistently well across a wide range of indices, compared to low-performing countries, which were much more inconsistent. For example, India (No. 16) scored relatively high for ?opportunity recognition,? suggesting that the female population recognizes good opportunities for businesses where they live, but received low scores relating to ?institutional foundations,? indicating that the women?s ability to act on those perceived opportunities is limited.
Economic development is not enough
Being strong in key areas such as legal rights, education and access to finance do not automatically result in high-potential female entrepreneurship. In some countries, the business environment for success is right, but female entrepreneurship is still low. This is often due to social and cultural norms that make it less conducive for women to become entrepreneurs. Japan, U.K. and U.S. are all high income countries but Japan has the lowest percentage of female managers (9 percent) compared to U.S. (43 percent), leaving many women in Japan without the experience and skills to start their own businesses. This is the same for other low-performing countries; Turkey (10 percent), Egypt (11 percent) and Morocco (13 percent).
Lack of knowledge holds back business growth
There is a trend among less educated females in developing countries to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities, but without education they lack the skills to move their businesses beyond the micro level. With the exception of Japan (63 percent), only a relatively small percentage of female business owners in the low-performing countries are highly educated; Morocco (2 percent), Brazil (12 percent), Uganda (7 percent).
Access to finance is crucial
Few women have bank accounts in low-performing countries; Egypt (7 percent), Uganda (15 percent), India (26 percent) and Morocco (27 percent). This compares to almost 100 percent access in the top-performing countries, other than Mexico (22 percent). However, even in countries where access to a bank account is high, venture capital funding is still low. For example, in the U.S. only 3-5 percent of venture financing goes to women-owned businesses.
Effective networking can open doors
Networking with other entrepreneurs and having access to the Internet helps create opportunities for female entrepreneurs. In particular, the Internet provides new ways of networking that eliminate temporal and geographic, as well as gendered social constraints, that can limit women?s access to information and resources. In the U.K., 78 percent of Internet users are women, compared with less than 7 percent in India and Uganda.
Technology enables business growth
Technology is an essential component for fostering high-potential female entrepreneurship. While research and development does not guarantee successful growth, without systematic research activity, new product development and future growth will be inhibited. Turkey and Egypt scored very low in this area while Japan and the U.S. scored highly. Technology has also made it cheaper than ever to start a business and removes many of the social and physical barriers women must overcome to start their own businesses and connect with the resources they need. Entrepreneurs need scalable technology solutions that enable them to accelerate the growth of their business to succeed.
Not all rosy at the top
Despite ranking high on the Index, even top-performing countries have room to improve before they can achieve parity across all areas and fully unlock the contribution female entrepreneurs can deliver. For example, France and the U.K. have much lower ratios of female to male startups (48:100 and 46:100 respectively) than the U.S. (71:100) and Australia (85:100) showing that a large gap of ?underutilized entrepreneurship potential? remains, and the U.S. and U.K. need to improve the number of women graduating with science degrees (41 percent and 37 percent respectively) in order to prepare a larger pool of tech savvy high-potential female entrepreneurs.
Room for optimism
A lower relative GDP doesn?t dictate the success of women entrepreneurs; some countries like Mexico (No. 5) ranked much higher than others with a similar economic and cultural profile, e.g. Brazil (No. 14), suggesting that improving access to resources and providing a favorable business environment can have a major impact.
This new Gender-GEDI research demonstrates that the determinants of success for female entrepreneurship are not just personal strengths and aspirations, but a result of the environment in which they operate. By providing a cross-country comparison, the Index helps countries identify where they can improve conditions to encourage and support entrepreneurial success among women. Additionally, the Index highlights critical gaps in the current understanding of female entrepreneurship to provide the building blocks for future research.

GENDER-GEDI Rankings
1. USA
2. Australia
3. Germany
4. France
5. Mexico
6. UK
7. South Africa
8. China
9. Malaysia
10. Russia
11. Turkey
12. Japan
13. Morocco
14. Brazil
15. Egypt
16. India
17. Uganda

The executive summary and full report can be found at dell.com/women

New Delhi, June 4, 2013 - Dell today announced the Dell Empowering Women Challenge, a global competition to encourage university students from any country, male or female, graduate or undergraduate, from any field of study, to propose initiatives empowering women and girls, thereby creating business opportunities and recognizing female influence. The competition seeks to inspire at least100 innovative ideas from around the world and will place an emphasis on the need to increase entrepreneurship in developing markets.

Continuing its commitment to inspiring innovation, the Dell Empowering Women Challenge is a spotlight challenge of the Dell Social Innovation Challenge, the world?s largest social innovation community, challenging university students to solve some of the world?s most pressing problems with transformative ideas.

Fifty semi-finalists will be selected in September and will receive direct mentorship from members of the Dell Women?s Entrepreneur Network, a community of around 400 established female founders connected to Dell, giving those project teams the chance to develop their ideas with the help, experience and expertise of successful women and business leaders. One member from each of the top three teams will receive an all-expense paid trip to pitch their team?s idea at a special awards event in December 2013. The winning team will be announced at that event and will receive a $15,000 cash prize. All finalists will be automatically entered as semi-finalists for the 2014 Dell Social Innovation Challenge, Dell?s umbrella competition focused on social entrepreneurship.

"We continue to see that while the aspiration of women and men may be equal, the barriers to opportunity they face are not. In business, the unfortunate reality is that this is true whether women are starting their own business, or are part of existing organizations, and this is a clear inhibitor to growth," said Trisa Thompson, vice president of Corporate Responsibility at Dell. "At Dell we are working on many fronts to create a level playing field for women. Having seen some incredible creative ideas in previous competitions, we?re excited to see how the world?s university communities will propose tackling the challenges facing women today."

The challenge was announced at the fourth annual Dell Women?s Entrepreneur Network global event in Istanbul, where Dell also introduced Pay It Forward, a new global initiative to support 1 million women and girls by the end of 2015. Dell also released the findings of the world?s first women?s entrepreneurship index, undertaken with The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute (GEDI), to measure and rank the entrepreneurial environment, eco-system and aspiration of women in 17 developed and emerging economies around the world.

Information for entrants:

? September 23, 2013: Deadline for entrants to register online at DellEmpoweringWomen.org and post project submissions

? October 4, 2013: 50 semi-finalists will be announced

? November 8, 2013: 3 finalists will be announced

? December 2013: awards event

? The winners and the 10 promising projects will share a total of $35,000 in cash prizes

? FREE to enter the competition

Mumbai: MediaCom has been named Media Agency Network of The Year at the 2011 M&M Awards, for the third year running. This is the first time in the history of the awards that an agency has retained the title for three successive years.

The M&M Awards recognise and celebrate leading multi-market advertising campaigns, the most innovative and effective work and the finest co-ordination of multi-local advertising strategies.

At the ceremony in London last night, Stephen Allan, Chairman and CEO of MediaCom Worldwide, picked up the award on behalf of the network. MediaCom also picked up 6 awards for individual campaigns for AkzoNobel, P&G, Dell and Deutsche Telekom and received 4 Highly Commended mentions.

The extent of MediaCom?s domination was underlined by the number of campaigns that the network had shortlisted ? 29 entries in total across 10 categories, representing more than 40% of the total shortlist. MediaCom had more than three times more shortlists than its nearest rival.

Stephen Allan said: ?It is an incredible feat to be Agency Network of the Year three times in a row. I?m delighted that MediaCom has been recognised as the No 1 multi-market media agency for 2009, 2010 and now 2011. These wins highlight the genuine cross-market thinking of our network and reward the tremendous efforts of our staff, who work hard to produce excellent work for each of our clients. I am extremely proud of what the MediaCom team has achieved.?

MediaCom?s full list of winners was as follows:

Best Communications Strategy : AkzoNobel, Dulux Let‘s Colour, MediaCom International

Best EMEA Campaign : P&G, Pringles music festivals, MediaCom International

Best Rest of the World Campaign : P&G Gucci Guilty, Indulging Asia in Guilty Pleasures, MediaCom Singapore

Best Business Campaign : Dell, Turning IT from a cost into an Investment, MediaCom International

Best Content Campaign : Deutsche Telekom, Red thread strategy - Life‘s for sharing with local heroes, MediaCom Germany

Campaign of the Year : Deutsche Telekom, Red thread strategy - Life‘s for sharing with local heroes, MediaCom Germany

Highly Commended mentions:

Communications Strategy : P&G, Future Friendly: Less waste, more reward, MediaCom International

CSR Campaign : AkzoNobel, Dulux Let‘s Colour, MediaCom International

Business : Dell, Encouraging Entrepreneurs to take their own path, MediaCom USA

Launch Campaign : Universal Despicable Me, Minion Mayhem, MediaCom International