Fashion focused Startup Experience workshop with Rebecca Minkoff

Intel, Rebecca Minkoff and Startup Experience team up to innovate in fashion

It’s no secret fashion isn’t my forte. On most days you will find me “dressed-up” in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. So why have I been working with Rebecca Minkoff? Well, fashion and technology have more in common than you may think.

As a major player in the fashion industry, Rebecca Minkoff has attributed much of her success to leveraging technology. Understanding her market through tech, a rather revolutionary goal when she first started, allowed her to understand her female demographic in a very real way.

However, she ran into a serious road block when the team responsible for building her new tech was out of touch with those same women. Without women engineers, she would continue to miss the mark of advancing her business. The solution? Hire women in a STEM field (science, technology, engineering and math). The problem? Only 24 percent of STEM workers are women.

This revelation led to a partnership with Intel, and the Design Ideation Camp was created. Startup Experience was asked to develop this one-day Design Ideation Camp based on the well-proven Startup Experience model. As the main speaker and facilitator, I had the honor of coaching and instructing brilliant women as they turned big problems into ideas and those ideas into solutions.

Based on The Startup Experience, the 10 hour event was filled with collaboration, problem analysis, creative brainstorming, business model development, and was capped off by a pitch competition. While the winners received tablets, courtesy of Intel, every participant, including myself, left the event inspired, challenged, and excited to solve more problems.

While I’m sure the participants walked away with a new perspective on their career, I personally walked away understanding Beyonce’s lyrics. Who runs the world? GIRLS!