
Vigneron (right) with Tsvetanova and the Blitab Kristina Tsvetanova, a mechanical engineer who created the first tactile e-tab let for the visually impaired, was among the latter. Braille publications are so costly to produce, so she invented Blitab, a US$500 tablet that converts text to tiny liquid dots that rise from tablets to be read by touch or as an audio document. “My best friend is blind and I did this for him before realising that a product I developed as a solution was also a business opportunity. Accessibility is important. What is the point of having millions of publications when only 1% of published books are in Braille? Why should anyone living in the 21st century be denied access to literature?” “Looking at these women makes you wonder what you’re doing with your life,” Cyrille Vigneron, CEO of Cartier, said in a later interview at the St Regis Singapore. “That’s why we divide the awards according to region. We don’t discriminate by sectors — many businesses we see are cross-disciplinary — because we didn’t want to constrain ideas of what we could support.” And Cartier has long been an advocate of empowerment and aid, investing in crisis management and supporting various causes globally, including refugee camps in Bangladesh, clean water programmes in Africa and women’s education in India. The Cartier Philanthropy vehicle has also financed the trips of women from Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia to train as solar engineers at Barefoot College. “Statistics on the discrimination women face are not new,” continued Vigneron. “There are many platforms for entrepreneurs, but men acquire most of the finances. So, it only makes sense to have these women-only entrepreneur awards. Now that the award is sufficiently well established and has credibility, it increases the confidence of banks in investing in these enterprises. These projects come from very concrete ideas. The laureates are not trying to find new spaceships to colonise Mars. They are addressing real community issues. If we allocate money to women doing beautiful things concretely, we can change the course of things on this planet and not try to escape from it. As a man sitting in that room, I found the surrounding energy, power and strength very touching. I feel like I have a responsibility to support these causes.”

Toksvig (left) chats with Mihov (second from right) and guest speakers in a panel discussion on the obstacles faced by women in entrepreneurship The ventures were indeed impressive in their idea, execution and potential for scale. Erin Keaney, the American founder of Nonspec, produces prosthetic limb kits for amputees for under US$200; Julia Romer of Germany invented an electricity-independent refrigerator under her company, Coolar, for storage of vaccines in remote regions; and Cameroonian Melissa Bime is behind Infiuss, a digital supply chain platform that operates a database of blood types available in connected hospitals and transports blood to patients in need. Each story came from a personal place and shared a common thread — the women took on these causes because they were driven by empathy and a sense of responsibility to their families, friends or communities. There were gasps, laughter, tears and applause as they related the gruesome, dismal or sad encounters that motivated their enterprises. Tolksvig returned to the stage visibly teary after all the finalists had finished telling their stories. “I’m having a heck of an evening,” she said, preparing to announce the winners. “I’m crying, I’m laughing. It’s a heck of an evening.”
Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards 2018 winners
- Asia-Pacific :
Swati Pandey, India
Arboreal Agro Innovations
An industrial-scale, vertically integrated producer of stevia, a 100% natural substitute for sugar
- Europe:
Kristina Tsvetanova, Austria
Blitab Technology
A tactile tablet for the blind and visually
impaired
- Latin America:
Paula Gomez, Brazil
Epistemic
A device that alerts patients and caregivers of an oncoming epileptic seizure up to 25 minutes in advance
- Middle East & North Africa:
Siroun Shamigian, Lebanon
Kamkalima
An online platform that uses artificial intelligence and data analytics to help one learn and teach Arabic
- Sub-Saharan Africa:
Melissa Bime, Cameroon
Infiuss
An online blood bank that collects and dispatches blood donations to hospitals.

by Michelle Zhu Following the conclusion of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards 2018, applications are now open for the 2019 edition, which will see Cartier granting over US$1 million ($1.37 million) in prize money to women entrepreneurs worldwide — making it the largest and most generous competition for women entrepreneurs in the world and across all sectors of industry. In the 2019 edition of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards, the competition is expanding to a seventh region. Additionally, Asia-Pacific will be divided into two separate regional entities, namely Far East Asia (China, Korea and Japan) and Southeast Asia (India, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and so on) so as to increase the programme’s impact. Twenty-one finalists will be selected to represent these seven regions, out of which seven laureates will be selected to win US$100,000 in prize money each. The remaining 14 finalists, placing second, will receive US$30,000 in prize money each. Cartier is currently accepting applications for the 2019 edition of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards until Aug 31. Both the hosting city and the finalists will be announced in February 2019. For more information about the application process and eligibility criteria, visit www.cartierwomensinitiative.com.