This year’s International Women’s Day theme is very close to our hearts – Count Her In: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress. Thank you to Gabrielle Provost (Connected-Care.Io), Georgia Downing (Gild), Jeannie-Marie Noyce (Brenna), Helen Souris (Cardihab) and Santosh Kaur (SmartHeal) for participating in our special International Women’s Day 2024 report.

ANDHealth is one of the only female-founded health technology accelerators in Australia and it has been female-led since its inception. We have a strong focus on supporting women in STEM, with 45% of companies in our database having a female founder and 38% having a female CEO or Managing Director. Meanwhile, according to Startup Muster, just 27% of companies in the broader Australian startup ecosystem have a female founder.

While important progress has been made, such as the recent release of gender pay gap data from nearly 5,000 Australian private sector employers and the State of Australian Startup Funding 2023 report revealing that last year saw an increase in both the proportion of total funding received by female founders and their participation in deals, there is always more work to be done.

Women and girls must be given equal opportunity to build their capabilities and strengthen their capacity to learn, earn and lead. This is particularly true in STEM, where just 15% of STEM-qualified jobs are held by women, and only 23% of senior management and 8% of CEOs in STEM-qualified industries are women.

We are proud to support female-founded and female-led digital health companies across Australia. This year, we are privileged to share the advice, learnings and inspirational words from five female leaders in our sector.

Read our special IWD report