DESIGN THINKING WORKSHOPS & HACKATHONS
Why women don't invest and how to make them invest for good?
Our WOMAN & IMPACT INVESTMENT HACKATHON is a research & innovation challenge which took place between February and March 2021. It aimed at better understanding the needs and attitudes of women towards investing.
We want to find concrete solutions to unlock their financial power and use it to accelerate impact investment.
Two investment gaps to fill
1. The gender investment gap
In the UK, 52% of women have never held an investment product, vs 37% of men (Yougov 2018). This investment gap adds to the gender pay gap, leading to women holding retirement savings which are 3 times lower than that of men. Yet, women are totally capable of managing investments. They actually outperform men in that area.
2. The impact finance gap
The other gap we want to tackle is the investment gap needed to finance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – a mere $2.5 trillion a year.
As women are more likely to invest their money ethically, we believe we can fill two gaps at the same time.
A hackathon to find solutions
Research
Through our qualitative research, we gained a deep understanding of womens’ needs and attitudes to investment throughout the user journey.
Design thinking hackathon
More importantly, through a design thinking-led hackathon, we used strong research insight to create concrete solutions to better engage women at each stage of the investment journey. We believe we can empower more women to gain financial security while investing for good, thus filling the gender and impact investment gaps.
Four solutions to get women to invest for good
We are delighted to share the concepts created through an 8 hour design-thinking process!
The Awesome Impact Investment Co-operative (winner)
Women investing in impact startups and angel investing
They looked at how to encourage women to start investing more in impact startups and angel investing.
They created an inclusive community to help aspiring impact investors learn about impact investment and therefore came up with the co-operative, which is driven by love rather than ego and discrimination. This co-operative was designed to help democratise investing in impact startups.
$quad$ Investment clubs (Runner up)
How can organisations empower their employees?
The team wanted to reduce the gender wealth gap by creating a ‘safe space’ where young women can talk about money. They did this through a gamified educational journey to learn the basics of investing, taught by other women on the app, in a sort of ‘pay-it-forward’ approach. They also added a service to create investment clubs amongst friends to invest money together.
Journey to Invest
Empowering and educating young women
An online platform to educate young women, and a supportive network to give them the confidence and inspiration to take action. All through a step by step, inspiring, long-term investment journey.
Do you have a big social or environmental problem to address with the help of design thinking?
The Girls of Whole Street
How can organisations empower their employees?
An interactive game based on role-play where participants learn how to invest a portfolio and rebalance assets towards sustainable (ESG) investments. It was designed as a service / team building activity paid by businesses for their employees.
"If you empower a woman, you empower a nation.
Yemi Keri & Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, Co-founders of Rising Tide Africa, a female angel investment network
Our partners
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