Kenneth Beh
Monash University
Gitanjali Bedi
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One Roof Women’s innovation is primarily to help women who are lacking support in start-ups and small businesses. They provide women with networks as well as classes to teach and assist women when starting and growing the business. One Roof Women also provides a co-working space for female oriented companies for them to work in allowing them to network and share their ideas.
One Roof Women was established in 2015 by the founder Sheree Rubinstein in Melbourne with the purpose of providing a platform to support women-led businesses. One Roof provides a suitable collaborative and co-working space for women-led business and for fresh start-ups by women. They also act as an innovator in providing a global groundswell to all-female or female-centric businesses.
One Roof’s innovation has grown to home over 80 different start-ups and small businesses over a 1,000-square metres office. By having a co-working space, the energy consumption can be reduced as compared to having an office for every small business besides helping to reduce their expenditure arising from high rental prices. In these co-working spaces, these entrepreneurs also can work, conduct meetings, brainstorm, pitch ideas, and network with other like-minded entrepreneurs all under the same roof. One Roof also holds weekly sessions, classes, and networking events for women which can assist in their business or innovation for a start-up.
The idea of One Roof came about when the founder received feedback from women around them who were passionate about their career. The feedback received was mostly about female-led businesses being unfavourable as women tend to be left out when it comes to female-led businesses and start-ups. This is due to the absence of support arising from the gender gap in entrepreneurship which tends to be more biased towards men. Thus, with these Sheree aspires to provide a support system to aid in women-led businesses.
They started off their company by testing the concept of a female-oriented co-working space in an Airbnb mansion in Melbourne. This then gave it its name One Roof as the co-working space for different companies was all under one roof. They start of by organising different events and sessions which helps empower as well as teach women about entrepreneurship. This idea was accepted by the society and the people kept flooding in. Within a week, there was more than 400 people who have paid a visit to their office said Hayley, One Roof’s community and operations manager. Hence, this implies that this innovation was indeed needed to bridge the gender gap in the society. One Roof then move on to finding an office in Melbourne to properly commence this idea.
One Roof Women is oriented to tackle the issue of gender inequality when it comes to women-led businesses and start-ups. One Roof Women acts as a support system for women-led business in the initial phases of making the idea suitable for business besides providing a network necessarily in forming and growing a business.
In the business aspect, One Roof allows women to start business easier by providing support such as acting as an incubator during the initial phase of the business. According to Hayley, One Roof helps to provide training and up-skill women preparing them for their businesses. One Roof also provides networks to small businesses and new start-ups. The building of network can be seen by One Roof becoming a hub to link women with ideas and innovations to venture capitalists which would provide the capital for start-ups.
“One Roof impacts the society through the promotion of gender equality by bringing women to the forth run when it comes to business. One Roof hopes to remove the barriers faced by women when starting the business by providing necessary supports” said Hayley. This is due to females being left behind when it comes to the support given to female-led businesses. The idea of acting as an incubator also promotes quality jobs and innovation which would help develop the economy as well. Hence, this would help build the economy slowly but surely.
One Roof also allows small companies to have a shared workspace which would reduce their carbon footprint as compared to having an office for each individual company. This can then be said that they are having more done with lesser energy consumption.
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Hayley Hewitt, Community and Operations Manager
