Reflections from our CEO for International Women's Day 2026

♀️ How difficult is it to access funding as a women entrepreneur working in the raw material and electronics circularity sectors in the EU? ♀️

The short answer is that it is “too difficult” – or in our case, if you are looking for funding to provide education outside of higher education institutions and outside of the STEM fields, the more accurate answer would be “seemingly impossible”.

To fund The E-Waste Column and The E-Waste Learning Hub, we have sent out upwards of 1000 funding applications and cold e-mails over the past 12 months – all just to try to raise the (ridiculously) lean amount of €20K. To date, we have been denied funding by every single governmental body, non-profit, and family foundation that we have reached out to.

All throughout this, we have repeatedly been told that “it must be a great time to be working on raw materials as women in the EU”. If you are curious to understand why we fundamentally disagree with that assumption or statement and why closing the #genderfundinggap would be important, have a look at our founder’s recent posts on The E-Waste Blog:

1️⃣ Dreaming is Risky Business

2️⃣ Even a Little is Too Much to Ask

#WomensDay #IWD2026 #GiveToGain