The BANFF Spark Accelerator for Women in the Business of Media is designed to address this systemic gap in gender equality and representation by providing essential opportunities and resources to help build significantly more women-owned businesses that excel both domestically and across the global media industry.

Over the course of three years, BANFF Spark will support up to 200 entrepreneurs with the goal of advancing gender equality and bolstering the economic success of all women. With a strong mandate to champion diversity at its core, the program is especially designed to empower women of colour, Indigenous women, women with disabilities, LGBTQ2S+ women, and non-binary individuals.

Keep up-to-date with BANFF Spark program news and application cycles HERE.

Why BANFF Spark?

With very few of Canada’s most prominent independent media companies primarily owned and operated by women, the overarching goal of this program is to result in more Canadian women-owned media companies.

It’s not only about economics. The vast majority of media businesses in the world are owned and operated by non-racialized men. It’s about the power that the media sector holds to tell stories, disseminate essential information, influence policy and change minds–especially in this incredibly charged geopolitical time.

How would the industry change with more women, and specifically more Black, Indigenous, and women of colour, in ownership positions?

How would the world’s media–and indeed the world–change?