As Rima Qureshi, Verizon's chief strategy officer says, “real innovation takes audacity,” a willingness to take bold risks and challenge established ways of working. At Verizon, we have an audacious mindset. We approach innovation by looking at the world through a variety of lenses and encourage our team to bring their authentic selves to work. We are proud to have a diverse workforce, which includes people of different genders, races, religions, ethnicities, disabilities, sexual orientations, national origins and more. That, plus a culture that encourages and values a wide array of viewpoints and intellectual curiosity makes us better and helps our talented team generate novel and creative ideas that spur innovation.
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Women throughout the company offer their own unique perspectives and disruptive ideas, and they are key to our success. It is essential that they take full part in the development, deployment and thought processes behind new technologies. Only through their creative contributions will the technology reach its full potential and help us deliver on our corporate purpose to create the networks that move the world forward.
Women are helping Verizon tackle some of the world's biggest challenges, like closing the digital divide. For example, our world-class women engineers have been central to the development of our 5G networks that are powering an incredible leap forward in wireless broadband technology. In addition to creating a culture of inclusion, we invest in a variety of initiatives to advance women and promote innovation. One example is Women of the World (WOW), which is a 12-month career development program that helps equip women at Verizon with skills to become leaders and achieve their personal and professional goals. Through this initiative and others, we strive to unlock the full potential of our workforce.
Women entrepreneurs face far more hurdles in getting access to venture capital compared to men, and women of color face even greater barriers. This disparity not only prevents women from achieving their professional aspirations, but it stifles innovation as women's creative ideas are not realized. Providing minimal funding for ideas generated by half the population limits society's ability to develop innovative solutions to problems.
One way to encourage VCs to fund more women-led startups is to have more women VCs. Studies show that women VCs are more likely to invest in women-led startups. Today, women make up a small percentage of both investment professionals and of general partners at venture capital firms. Taking steps to eliminate conscious and unconscious gender bias in the investment industry is another way we could help increase female representation. One promising trend is the fact that women and Black and Latina founders are starting their own VC funds, and more women are becoming angel investors. These leaders are taking their destinies into their own hands. With women at the helm of VC funding, female entrepreneurs will have greater opportunities to launch their enterprises.
Verizon has also stepped up to funnel capital to entrepreneurs who have long been overlooked. Through TechRise, a collaboration of Verizon, nonprofit P33 and business incubator 1871, Black and Latinx tech entrepreneurs in Chicago are getting access to seed money. In 2021, TechRise awarded more than $920 thousand to 42 startups, and the goal is to deploy $5 million in grant funding. TechRise provides access not only to capital but also to community and connections - supporting Black and Latinx founders through the life cycles of the business, from the initial concept to success.
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