(Geneva/Nairobi) The International Trade Centre (ITC) today unveiled a new web and mobile-phone application that will help women entrepreneurs from across the world to connect to markets.
The SheTrades app was launched by ITC Executive Director Arancha González and Ambassador Amina Mohamed, Cabinet Secretary of the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, at the International Forum on Women in Business, which takes place in Nairobi in conjunction with theWorld Trade Organization’s 10th Ministerial Conference.
Part of a wider ITC initiative to connect one million women entrepreneurs to markets by 2020, SheTrades provides buyers across the globe with a unique platform to connect with women-owned enterprises. The platform is a tool for women entrepreneurs to address many gender-specific barriers to trade and brings together thousands of women-owned businesses to showcase their products in sectors ranging from agriculture to information technology. Through a series of customized filters, buyers can identify companies that meet their requirements.
Developed by women entrepreneurs, for women entrepreneurs, SheTrades is a platform for connecting women-owned businesses with sourcing companies, including multinationals. SheTrades was developed by GreenBell Communications, following the company’s first-place win at the 2015 WVEF Tech Challenge, a joint initiative by ITC, Google and CI&T to develop a digital platform to support the one million women entrepreneurs’ initiative.
SheTrades allows women-owned businesses to connect to markets and internationalize, and enables them to share information about their companies, products and services, and connect with buyers. In addition, SheTrades enables buyers of products and services to filter and match themselves with companies and women entrepreneurs in the SheTrades database that meet sourcing requirements.
‘SheTrades is an innovative tool to facilitate our efforts to connect one million women entrepreneurs to markets by 2020. It facilitates new business opportunities and potential partnerships, and presents larger businesses with new sourcing possibilities,’ said ITC Executive Director Arancha González.
‘The SheTrades tech platform offers an opportunity for women entrepreneurs to leverage 21st century technology offered by mobile phones and the internet to reach out, find buyers, to internationalize and scale their businesses,’ Ms González said.
Juliana Dib Rezende, of the Google Tech Challenge team, said ‘Our mission is to make information universally accessible and useful and that is exactly what SheTrades does by connecting women-owned business and buyers. So, we are really proud to have contributed to this project by offering our technical expertise and helping ITC design and manage the tech contest that selected SheTrades among more than 400 applications.’
The app is available for download on www.shetrades.com, as well as Google’s Play Store.
