“Mana Innovation Growth Institution” hosted Masoumeh Ebtekar, the vice president of Iran for women and family affairs.

This September, Sorena Sattari, the vice president for science and technology affairs, opened the first specialized women innovation center in the country. “Mana” is a center for increasing the interactions and cooperation between women in terms of startup and entrepreneurial activities. In fact, it is an ecosystem to flourish the technological and startup activities of women.

Valuable Supporting of Entrepreneurial Women by the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology Affairs

During the meeting, Ebtekar considered the opening of the institution as a valuable act by the Vice-Presidency, stating: the center"s special look at balancing women"s social activities and families is commendable. This is mainly due to the fact that many of our ladies have to choose for their social activities and home. Therefore, the creation of this center is a successful model for the development of technology ecosystem in the field of women.

She continued: modeling and continuing activities like this series should be on the agenda. During this visit, I got to know the creative teams that will surely have a very good market soon.

She also talked about the support of development of activities in this field, mentioning: other universities must follow this pattern and even improve it.

Role-playing and Successful Presence of Women in the Ecosystem of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

During the visit, Zeynab Hamidzadeh, the advisor to the vice president for science and technology affairs, pointed out: domestic and global reports emphasize the appropriate share of Iranian women in access to education and health, but increasing women"s participation in the political and economic spheres is also important.

According to Hamidzadeh, despite the high literacy rate of women domestically, their attendance at university faculty does not reach 25%. In addition, about 12% of knowledge-based companies management are created and managed by women management.

He continued: while women"s presence in the technology and innovation ecosystem has been a successful presence, we have significant examples in a variety of areas, including biotechnological drugs, probiotics or energy industries.

Hamidzadeh continued: in our research we found that many women abandon their social and professional roles after graduation and only perform family roles. This has been the idea for the development of the Mana institution.

According to the report, the designing of Mana institution was initiated in October 2017 with the support of the Vice-Presidency. Innovative architecture is a feature of the center. The presence of creative teams in the center has also created an appropriate balance between the social activity of the women and their activities at home.

The design of the center is like a beehive because the beehive is the most important symbol of women"s management in nature. Another interesting thing about the design of this place was the use of natural materials that fit the design of the home. In total, five acceleration teams are established in the center. In addition, up to 100 million Tomans is invested in the acceleration phase. The next step in this center is the pre-acceleration phase where ideas are supported for team building and product development.

In addition, Shadmana is another service provided by the center, which is related to four sections of childcare, maternal and newborn workplaces, specialist counseling, and a trainer training academy. Teams at this center, after upgrading and expanding their product, have formed an independent knowledge-based company and are on the path to development and assistance in getting rid of the oil economy.

A report by the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs