Aspiring female entrepreneurs had the opportunity to learn from established businesswomen at the Helping Entrepreneurs Rise (HER) Summit in Risa Commons, Oct. 19.

The Skandalaris Center-sponsored free event was a day all about community building and empowerment amongst female entrepreneurs, and aimed to help women rise above gender and cultural norms in business.

The summit was the flagship event for the Simon Initiative, a new Washington University program focused on cultivating a community of female entrepreneurs. The agenda featured expert roundtable breakout sessions, networking opportunities, speakers and an opportunity for young entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges.

The keynote speaker for the event was Amanda Zuckerman, the co-founder and creative director of Dormify. Zuckerman shared insights on how her company was started, working with family and finding balance as an entrepreneur.

“We took our time with building this. We wanted to learn, we wanted to do research, we wanted to do this thoughtfully and also use our money thoughtfully,” Zuckerman said.

Zuckerman noted that she sees the success of the work environment as equally integral as the success of profits.

“We always have to think about how we make our employees happy and build an environment and culture that people love to work in every day without losing sight of the growth we need to hit,” Zuckerman said.

Sydney Everett, the Marketing and Communications specialist at the Skandalaris Center, sees this event as an opportunity to “connect and learn.”

“We are focused on helping local entrepreneurs, so we are really focused on helping people who are students on Wash. U.’s campus and identify what they need and give them resources for that,” Everett said.

Jennifer Lunceford, a first year at the Brown School of Social Work, said the HER Summit is an opportunity that shouldn’t be passed up.

“I just want to take advantage of all the networking and career planning events that I can, especially while registration for these events are free,” Lunceford said.

Chandler Malone of SixThirty Ventures was invited as an entrepreneurial expert to this event. Having been exposed to the world of entrepreneurship, Malone has experienced the gender inequalities within the investment field first-hand.

“I think typically, in raising funding for businesses, only three percent of funding, at least in venture capital, has gone to women, but the returns that women-run companies have provided have been over twice what the actual average is, so you see there is a gap,” Malone said.

Malone believes in supporting women and minority entrepreneurs and feels that investing in these entrepreneurs’ development early on would benefit the entire field.

“Having events that help find ways to address and bridge the gap is great for providing more opportunities for women, but also just for creating a better world and business outcomes,” Malone said.