Programs & Events // Past
Female Founder Pitch Competition 
10/20/2021 // Watch Video
The inaugural Female Founder Pitch Competition showcased emerging businesses and technologies that are paving the way to have a significant impact on the world. Open to all UT Austin undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, alumnae, and startup ecosystem women-founders, this startup competition aimed to highlight innovation happening in the heart of Texas.
International Women’s Day: Virtual Experience
3/8/2021 // Watch Video
This year, we joined the IWD Community in encouraging the world to choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements while challenging gender bias and inequality, and we want to continue to spread that message. Relive our virtual celebration below while hearing from some of today’s leading female voices from the business community and across the University of Texas at Austin.
Women’s Summit 2020: Virtual Experience
10/17/2020 // Watch Video
The Fall 2020 inaugural Women’s Summit included a full day of virtual programming focused on content categorized into our three engagement pillars: 1) Empowering, 2) Equipping, and 3) Building Community.
The Women’s Summit focused on ways students and community members could further their careers, build their businesses, or better define themselves as leaders. Content incorporated a strong focus on bringing new industry friends together to explore how women can be successful in managing their careers – and family life.
EmpowHER Hour Series — sponsored by KS WELI Alumni Advisory Board
How to Kill It In Your Internship
Hear from Allie Danziger, founder of Ampersand, on how internships help young aspiring professionals to change the trajectory of their careers and life!
Hot Takes for a Cool Career
4/26/2021 // Dr. Melissa Murphy ’12 M.A. ’16 Ph.D.
Hear from Dr. Melissa Murphy, founder of The Pitch Academy & McCombs School of Business lecturer, on her entrepreneurial story and advice to her younger self on networking, putting yourself out there and using your voice confidently.
Balancing Purpose and Profit in Your Company
3/29/2021 // Vaishali Jadhav UT B.A.
Join the AAB and learn how to balance purpose and profit in your company.
Investing Basics and Being Smart with your Money
Join the AAB and learn the basics of investing and being smart with your money with Stephanie Xenos, Founder of Money Muse.
What it Means to be a Female Leader
Join special guest speaker Cindy Lo and learn what it means to be a female leader.
Finding Mentors in the Startup Space
Join AAB as we share about the importance of finding mentors within the startup space. Surrounding yourself with people who will empower you and encourage you as a young professional can be crucial to growth. Learn more about how you can find key mentors as you launch your career. Guest speaker Sara Wadud.
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Tips for Picking a Team for Your Next Startup
Join AAB as we share about the importance of picking the right team. Specifically, we will explore some key things to consider when picking a team for your next startup and how having the right team in the work place can help contribute to your success. Our guest speaker, Dana Such, will provide her insight and expertise.
Case Interview Tips & Women in Consulting
The AAB will walk participants through a sample case interview and share useful tips about navigating interviews from consulting firms. This is a great opportunity to hear from women in the consulting space and meet others interested in this career path.
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Virtual Recruiting Tips
SHEspeaks Series
The Importance Of Having A Mentor
During this event, we went over the importance of having a mentor, heard guidance from Alexa about how to find and approach mentors and ways to help utilize social media in the healthiest way.
Reverse Engineering Your Pitch with Courteney Real
SHEspeaks is a virtual series that will enable you to identify and make the most of opportunities, overcome and learn from setbacks, and succeed in a variety of settings. This October’s SHEspeaks will focus on reverse engineering your pitch. Pitching your business is the most important thing a founder can do. Whether you need capital, partners, or talent, a great pitch is required. This workshop will teach you how to build the best pitch to help your startup succeed. Don’t have a business yet? Then come learn how to pitch yourself to join a winning team.
Persuasive Communication
Customer Discovery
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Ideation
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Effective Decision Making
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Intro to SHEspeaks
In partnership with the LaunchPad at UT Austin, the SHEspeaks supplemental portion of the Entrepreneurial Mindset Bootcamp series aims to equip both students to join the modern workforce (helping them to better adapt to the evolving nature of work) and those wanting to start their own businesses. The series will do this by teaching the entrepreneurial mindset: a set of skills that enable people to identify and make the most of opportunities, overcome and learn from setbacks, and succeed in a variety of settings.
SHEreads Series — sponsored by KS WELI Student Advisory Board
SHEreads #2: Cowgirl Power by Gay Gaddis
Intro to SHEreads
We are so excited to announce the launch of SHEreads Cohort #1! #SHEreads is a self-paced book club with optional guided questions and informal discussion over #Slack. Tune in at the end of the cohort to hear from Cindy Lo herself, at an exclusive #SHEreads event.
Special Events
KS WEL Institute’s 2nd Birthday
The best things come in 2’S! The Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute celebrated our 2nd birthday on Friday, September 24th. Our birthday wish was to continue celebrating the successes of our students and alumnae – empowering women to be bold, creative, courageous, and fearless.
Students stopped by the Kendra Scott Center on 9/24 and celebrated and learned more about the KS WEL Institute! We even had a few birthday surprises for visitors throughout the day.
Diversity and Inclusion in Entrepreneurship: Navigating the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
The 2021 Diversity and Inclusion in Entrepreneurship summit will provide UT students and the greater Austin community insight on ways entrepreneurs from underserved communities can successfully launch entrepreneurial ventures utilizing the support of the larger entrepreneurial ecosystem. Join the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center, Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs, Social Innovation Initiative, the Entrepreneurship Minor and the Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute for this important and empowering evening.
A New Era of Entrepreneurship
Join the KS WEL Institute & the Moody College of Communication to learn from female entrepreneurs located in Silicon Hills, Valley, and Beach as they share their startup journeys. Hear these young industry leaders’ perspectives on the Silicon hubs, how these networks expanded during the pandemic, the best ways to start a business during and after COVID-19, and how to pinpoint entrepreneurial opportunities.
DWEN Virtual Summit: Powering Forward
Join Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network online from anywhere to hear stories of resilience, inspiration, determination, and strength. DWEN brings you keynote speakers including tennis powerhouse, Venus Williams, renowned fashion artist, Katie Rodgers and the digital literacy pioneer, Kathryn Parsons. This summit will leave you inspired, informed and energized to Power Forward through your own journey. Attend breakout sessions and networking opportunities lead by thought leaders and experts in their fields to help you get to the solutions you need for your most pressing IT and business challenges. Get ready to share ideas with leaders, innovators and other founders just like you.
LaunchPad Startup Weekend Southwest: Celebrating Women Entrepreneurs
Are you a student in a Blackstone LaunchPad & Techstars entrepreneurship program?Do you have an idea you’d like to pursue or a problem you’d like to solve but don’t know where to start or who to start with?
The Blackstone LaunchPad & Techstars Startup Weekend is the place to look for a team, create a prototype of your idea, validate your business idea, and receive feedback from experienced entrepreneurs, all in one weekend!
Join UT Austin, UT Dallas, and other LaunchPad schools across the U.S. to learn about what it takes to start a company in 54 hours with other students. We’re focused on serving female and non-binary students but all gender identities are welcome!
We’ll also have free snacks and a t-shirt shipped to you, cash prizes for the top 3 teams, and one random participant will win a Dell laptop courtesy of the Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (WEL) Institute!
The virtual event is FREE and open to students of all gender identities AND currently enrolled at a university in the Blackstone LaunchPad & Techstars network.
Workshop: Fundraising for Female Founders
This virtual workshop by the Kendra Scott Women’s Leadership Institute and campus partner, Blackstone LaunchPad Powered by Techstars at UT Austin (The LaunchPad), will help students build confidence in their understanding of what it means to financially sustain a company with an emphasis on the female perspective.
By demystifying concepts such as venture capital, angel investor, bootstrapping, non-profit development, and crowdfunding, students will leave feeling better educated about startup finances and more confident in their exploration of entrepreneurship.
The workshop will feature two panels of investors and entrepreneurs (with female-focused brands) talking about fundraising basics as well as the nuances of what it means to fundraise as a woman. A community showcase will follow.
This event will be hosted on Hopin.
Female Empowerment through Mentorship
Creativity in Entrepreneurship: A Workshop on Ideation
Personal Branding for Female Entrepreneurs
