 Historically New Zealand has been so forward-thinking in women's rights, but I think today we aren't doing as well as we could be. My name is Anna Gunther and I'm the Chief Bubble Lower of Pledge Me, which is a Kiwi crowdfunding platform. My name's Rebecca Mills. I'm a Sustainability Strategist. So what that practically means is I work with entrepreneurs and business leaders to create the best outcomes for people on the planet as well as profit. I think in today's world there's still a very large under-representation of females in the tech space, and certainly if you go along to any tech conferences you really feel it. I'm Frances Valentine and I am the founder of the Mind Lab by MuTec, an interdisciplinary lab here in Auckland in New Zealand. Encouragement needs to start at a young age. If there's a role model there that someone can look up to, you know, and if this role model is a female heroine that girls or woman can identify with, then this is encouragement for them to not only just like the story or the heroine, but her journey as well. My name's Maru Neho Neho. I'm the Managing Director of my games company Meteor Interactive. I'm also the games producer and designer within my business. I think that there is three critical ingredients for female entrepreneurs to thrive and they are good access to networks, good access to role models and good access to the ability for them to see that they can be all that they want to be. The more of those role models we have who are female, the more we'll see young females becoming entrepreneurs themselves and perhaps not going into traditional higher education but saying actually I'll take a risk and I'll start a business and do some good. All of our large campaigns have been run by female creators. So one of my favourite campaigns was the Super Power Baby Project which was run by a woman named Rachel Callender, a photographer down in Timaru. She wanted to raise money to go around the country taking pictures of kids with genetic conditions and sort of change the conversation from disabilities into different abilities and she did such an amazing job in 30 days. She raised over $80,000 and managed to go all around the country taking pictures of these kids. I remember when I attended my first game conference and I was only one of a few women at the games conference and there must have been about 1,000 people there and 990 of them were male and knowing that it was a male-dominated industry and feeling awkward whenever I did attend events like that didn't stop me. It just made me think more creatively. Well I think in navigating these circles it's important to be grounded and brave and you need to be both of those things if you're going to be truly present and engage in the conversations and give the most value. We all make contributions to our world. We all have the same capacity to get up in the morning and make a difference and I always find it as the neighbour next door or as the person down the road or the kid who does something remarkable in their school who really inspire me and actually sometimes other people who keep me really focused because I realise that sometimes people who have got extraordinary things working against them actually just step up and actually make a difference themselves. I think the one thing that New Zealand can do to get more women into entrepreneurship would be to promote more examples of women rocking out in the space so there's more role models that we can try to be like because I think in order to be something you have to be able to see at first. I think there's one very simple thing that New Zealand could do in the next few years to encourage more women to go into entrepreneurship and that's to tell the stories of the women who have already done this and who are leading successful lives and successful lives in a holistic sense. It's very important for females to find what other like-minded females who actually support their ideas and these don't necessarily tell people who understand what someone does but actually having that person you can go to and say, this is what I'm thinking, what do you think? And you know they're going to come and support you and it could be just the emotional support, it could be just saying it's a sounding board but also as a connector to other people. The best advice I have for female entrepreneurs is to start with where you are, do what you can and use what you have. The number one thing I'll tell people is just do it, in fact that's the meaning of my company's name, Meteor, is to do it or to go and do it.