A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will hold a two-day workshop on the current state of knowledge of the factors that contribute to women's underrepresentation in entrepreneurship. Through a series of panels, this workshop will discuss barriers that organizations and venture capital firms that fund entrepreneurs are addressing to support women entrepreneurs and discuss ongoing strategies that work to ensure the success of women in their entrepreneurial endeavors. Specifically, this workshop will:

• Examine the data that exist on the gender and ethnic diversityof entrepreneurs across science, technology, engineering, and medical industries, and explore how the intersection of race and gender affect the representation of women and women of color in entrepreneurship. • Examine the accessibility to financial capital, venture investments, small business innovation loans, and non-governmental sources and identify ways to increase accessibility to investment funds. • Explore where the underrepresentation of women is most prominent and discuss the specific points in their entrepreneurial endeavor where women face challenges, and at which stage interventions might be most effective (such as the application process for grants, in the descriptions of the call for applications, etc). • Highlight existing programs that provide women of all backgrounds the business and management skills, negotiation prowess, fundraising abilities, and networks to succeed in entrepreneurial settings • Pinpoint promising practices from other sectors (such as academia) for supporting the work-life balance of women entrepreneurs.

A proceedings-in-brief will be published upon completion of the workshop.

The workshop may be followed by a series of targeted, regional meetings to bring together a cross-sector community of stakeholders to discuss particular challenges and opportunities facing women in entrepreneurship in specific regions.