Last Thursday, 11th of June, at 5:30pm in the Sala Garate of the University of Deusto, we celebrated, with a lot of excitement, not always contained, and pride for our mentees and mentors, the closing event of the First program of mentoring for women entrepreneurs in Euskadi, developed by MET Community in collaboration with the University of Deusto and the Deusto Business School.
After the emotional words of Magdalena Ituarte, the co-director together with Virginia Gómez Sierra of Met Community in Euskadi, we could enjoy the company of Aitor Urzelai, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Information Society Director of the Basque Government; Izaskun Artetxe, Technical and Economic Secretary of the Economic Promotion of the Biscay Provincial Council; and Marta Ajuria, Councilor responsible of the Economic and Treasury area of the Bilbao Council. They offered us their point of view about the women’s entrepreneurship in Euskadi. They also shared with us the programs and specific actions they are undertaking from the Administration to support Basque women entrepreneurs.
After them, it was time for the leading roles of the event: the mentees and mentors who a few months ago inaugurated this first edition (and promotion) of Met Community Euskadi. Among the mentees we have Joana Aranda, Aída Aguirre (who could not join us), Ainhoa Bolsico, Anaska Córdoba, Beatriz Escudero (always supported by her colleague Ainhoa Garde),María Fernández, Nagore de los Ríos (who delighted us with her little mentee -newborn), Ruth Guerrero, Tamara Ferrero and Judit Urquijo. And among the mentors, we had: Antonio Tena, Mercedes Ortiz de Zarate, Arantxa Arocena, Pilar Angulo, Jonatan Belarde and Marta Martín Trenor. However, Rubén Iglesias, Gabriel Aldamiz and Aletxu couldn’t be there with us.
After the emotional, exciting and exhilarating words of the mentees and mentors, who picked up their diplomas proud of the processes followed and the achieved goals (and the ones that have to be achieved), Guillermo Dorronsoro, dean of the DBS, said a few words who lead to a cocktail we enjoyed while we were celebrating the last METworking of this academic course. It was the perfect moment to share dreams, difficulties, hopes and illusions with other participants who accompanied us on a Thursday that turned out to be a really nice evening a lot of us still remember and will keep doing it a few more days.
You will have to excuse me today if I don’t summarize everything that was said during the almost two hours that lasted the event, because today I want to highlight the profile of the women entrepreneur who participated in the workshops and in the process of mentoring that thanks to Met Community were able to live and experiment these 10 magnificent mentees. And it’s not only me who is saying it, but basically all of the mentors are too.
During the pñrocess of mentoring, the mentors have enjoyed the women that were defined as passionate, brave, daring, dreamer, social, curious, really generous, wise, intelligent, confident, with initiative and illusion, open-minded, restless workers, fighters, perseverant, constant, humble, proud of themselves and inquiring, among others.
During this process, mentees as well as mentors have learnt, cried, laughed, shared dreams, moved on together, created, thought, worked as a team, collaborated and “failed” but they have also got excited, fallen and got up, been wrong, gone out of their comfort zone, felt mutual admiration, supported each other, grown together, got involved directly and overcome fears.
By the way, do you know that our mentees want to highlight that they are no superwomen. They even have started their business… no more comments.
Congratulations to everyone for your achievements, for being part of the entrepreneur community, for acting like such and showing the “world” that we still have a lot to say and do.
Oh, and Magdalena and Virginia, thank you for letting me be a part of your team and contribute a little bit to this initiative that one day Yanire Braña (founder of MET Commuity) decided to launch.
Translated by María Ubierna Quintanilla and supervised by Arantza Arruti.