THE TECHNOLOGY START-UP SCENE IN SLOVAKIA: NO WOMAN'S LAND?

Low representation of women on the technological start-up scene is broadly addressed by both academics and policy makers. While academics focus on analysing the different causes of this phenomenon (varying from gender differences in abilities and behaviour patterns, through the role of education to the gender biased funding and support mechanisms, etc.), policy makers call for the better use of talents of the ever-increasing pool of highly qualified women. This paper contributes to this discussion by providing evidence from Slovakia. To collect this evidence analysis of the web-sites of the main start-up initiatives was carried out to investigate the level and forms of women's´ involvement in the Slovak start-up scene. Additionally, state funded programmes and tools promoting technologically oriented start-ups were evaluated to explore their potential to encourage or hinder higher participation of women in this type of entrepreneurial activities. The outcomes of the research confirmed assumption about low entrepreneurial activity of women in the technologically oriented start-ups and revealed mostly gender neutral (if not gender blind) character of existing funding and support measures. The last part of the paper therefore formulates a set of recommendations on how to make these measures more gender-inclusive.