For the first time ever, in 2023, the stellar fellows line-up from the Cartier Women’s Initiative includes Singaporean Mint Lim, founder of School of Concepts.
This is French high-jewellery house Cartier’s 17th year running in identifying the talented and tenacious women in their empowering Cartier Women’s Initiative (CWI).
Innovation, Creativity, Leadership
Since 2006, Cartier has, through the Cartier Women’s Initiative, helped women impact entrepreneurs reach their full potential by recognising their achievements and providing them with the necessary financial, social, and human resources to grow their businesses and enhance their leadership skills.
The programme is open to women-run and women-owned businesses from any country and sector that aim to have a strong and sustainable positive impact on society, as defined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This includes ending poverty, hunger, gender inequality, creating new sources of clean water, energy, industrial and infrastructure innovation, among many other essential things.
The Cartier Women’s Initiative, through its powerful momentum and influence, has supported 298 women impact entrepreneurs hailing from 63 countries and has awarded a total of USD $7,440,000 in grants to support their businesses, all of which are driven by a fundamental and important common conviction: that of solving the world’s most pressing challenges.
Fresh Impetus
For the 2023 edition, Cartier is further increasing its commitment by introducing new regional and thematic awards to its outstanding programme, while also increasing its grant funding and raising the total number of fellows to 33.
This year’s program features a total of 11 awards, comprising of 9 regional awards, including Oceania and Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as 2 thematic awards – Science and Technology launched in 2021, and the newest Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award, which seeks to encourage entrepreneurial solutions to close gaps of access, outcome or opportunities for communities that have been underrepresented or underserved. This pilot accolade is open to both genders. For the first time also, the Cartier Women’s Initiative recognises women impact entrepreneurs from Armenia, Bulgaria, Dominican Republic and Singapore.
Women have always had a pivotal role at Cartier, which has actively supported women entrepreneurs for more than 16 years. We are thrilled, this year, to further expand our recognition of changemakers across the world with our two new regional awards and our new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award.
Cyrille Vigneron, President and CEO of Cartier International
Mint Lim: Sustainable Learning
For the first time, the Cartier Women’s Initiative has a fellow from Singapore – Mint Lim, Founder of School of Concepts, Singapore’s first education centre that uses play-based phonics in its programme.
As someone with dyslexia, who found it challenging to learn English, Mint received help on how to overcome her reading challenges. That planted the desire in her to give back.
A firm believer of Nelson Mandela’s quote that “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” Mint founded School of Concepts (SOC) in 2018, after journeying as a serial entrepreneur.
Motivated by the mission to give every child access to quality education, School of Concepts (SOC) is a literacy programme that enables young learners up to the age of 12 to learn English through different media such as brick and mortar schooling, hands-on toy kits and mobile game applications.
At SOC, students learn to read, write and spell the fun way. The education centre aims to help every child discover his or her optimal learning style through its proprietary diagnostic assessment. The curriculum at School of Concepts enables creativity and play. Mint also believes in training educators to teach with a heart and a motive to empower and inspire learning.
Today, SOC has benefitted over 25,000 children in Singapore. Throughout the journey, SOC has been committing 30 per cent of its resources towards inclusive enrolment and hiring to fulfil SOC’s vision for a kinder and more empathetic tomorrow.
A mother to a young child herself, Mint says, “Children only turn two, three, or four once. If we miss that window to teach them to read, it gets lost forever,
My dream is to give every young learner an opportunity to acquire a language through a medium that fits their natural learning style the most.
Mint Lim
Singapore Speaker Series
This year, Mint kicked off the Speaker Series in Jakarta with Indonesian fellow Denica Riadini-Flesch of SukkhaCitta. Mint Lim and Denica Riadini-Flesch jointly shared their impact entrepreneurship journey with a 70-strong audience of entrepreneurs and ecosystem enablers at Eden restaurant, Pullman Orchard Hotel in Singapore.
Besides the CWI fellows, the audience also got to hear from a small group of empowered speakers which included Maria Li, Chief Operating Officer of Tech In Asia, the leading digital media platform covering Asia’s tech and start-up scene, Cheah Sui Ling, Venture Partner, Wavemaker Partners, who has 20 years of global investment banking experience across Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan, and BNP Paribas, Grace Park, Co-Founder, DocDoc, the world’s first patient intelligence company, with a mission to transform healthcare by decreasing costs, improving quality and enhancing the patient experience, and Jennifer Buckley, Founder & Managing Partner at Sweef Capital, a Singapore-headquartered independent impact investment firm dedicated to improving the lives of women, men, their families and communities in underserved markets.
Says Yanina Novitskaya, CEO, Cartier Southeast Asia & Oceania, who was also a guest speaker at the event, “For 16 years, the Cartier Women’s Initiative has supported women entrepreneurs and spotlighted the positive impact that these changemakers have made on humanity. Today, we honour them as global citizens who are contributing to the prosperity of communities beyond their home countries,
By challenging gender stereotypes and breaking glass ceilings, our fellows and speakers are already inspiring us every day. It is our goal to transform these diverse communities into an interconnected ecosystem so we can truly be an unstoppable force of change.
Yanina Novitskaya, CEO, Cartier Southeast Asia & Oceania
The Cartier Women’s Initiative Speaker Series will travel to Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Australia, featuring fellows and inspiring speakers as agents of positive change who impact lives and lifestyles globally.
The Awards Go To…
On May 10, 2023, the first-place awardee of each of the 11 Cartier Women’s Initiative awards will be announced during the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards Ceremony, held in Paris.
The first-place awardees will receive USD $100,000 in grant funding, while the second and third-place awardees will receive USD $60,000 and USD $30,000 respectively. To facilitate this, the total grant funding per edition has increased to USD $2 million, its largest amount yet.
In addition to the grant funding, all 33 fellows will also benefit from tailored mentoring and coaching, media visibility, networking opportunities and education courses from the leading business school INSEAD.
The Cartier Women’s Initiative is open to women-run and women-owned businesses from any country and sector that aim to have a strong and sustainable social and/or environmental impact.
Leading up to the application period of 10 May – 30 June for the 2024 edition of the Cartier Women’s Initiative, Cartier will be collaborating with selected partners such as StartupX to prepare applicants for the programme, leveraging on the networks, expertise and dedication of these ecosystem enablers in the respective countries.
Images courtesy of Cartier, artwork by Curatedition. All rights reserved.
Related Links:
Cartier: Strong Women, Big Ideas
Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards
