Women-led startups and businesses can add $44 billion to the nation’s economy

Australia could add $44 billion to the economy if it invested equally in women-led startups and businesses, Queensland’s chief entrepreneur says.

“That’s a lot of growth in our regions,” Julia Spicer told the Regional Australia Institute’s national summit in Canberra on Thursday.

“We need to get smarter about how we help people access investment to grow that business.”

More jobs in technology and innovation are seen as vital to the future of regional communities, which are at the centre of sustainable agriculture and the renewable energy transition.

The institute this week released a progress report on its policy ambitions to support a regional population of 11 million by 2032, including targets to boost jobs in technology.

It found there were small increases in the regional share of new businesses between 2021 and 2022, along with a growing number of trademarks registered in the country.

Nikki Davey won the Rural Women’s Award this week, recognised for co-founding a global digital platform that links consumers with local flower farmers.

Grown Not Flown was designed to cut down on “flower miles” from imported blooms while encouraging people to embrace local produce in the same way they celebrate food.

“More times than not small-scale growers are foregoing paying themselves a wage so that they can continue to farm and produce incredibly high-quality products for their community,” Davey said while accepting the AgriFutures award at Parliament House on Tuesday night.

“We need to support small-scale growers by providing them with the tools and technology to succeed.”

Nick Sheehan, founder and chief executive of technology services company efex, said entrepreneurs should go into schools and tell young people about opportunities in startups.

“You get 40 in your HSC … you can still be really successful,” Sheehan said.

“The most successful people, who don’t think in boxes, are actually people who just worked it out themselves.

“We need to do a better job of telling kids that it’s OK if you’re a bit of a dunce in school because you can still be really successful and technology is an enabler of that success.”

This article was first published by AAP.