Women working in tech have seen their fair share of publicized, unequal treatment, starting with the gender pay gap and ending with a lack of promotions and workplace harassment — Ellen Pao, former Reddit CEO and Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s CEO are only two examples of female Silicon Valley bosses who have been discriminated for their actions because of their gender.

But we are seeing small steps towards improvement, beginning with tech startups themselves. An example is Springwise-featured InHerSight, a crowdsourced website that lets employees contribute anonymous reviews of their company’s treatment of female staff, rating elements such as “wellness initiatives” and “management opportunities for women.”

Another is a women-only peer-to-peer mentoring community for professional females in tech. Women hold only 11 percent of executive positions in tech, and Glassbreakers is trying to change that.

This International Women’s Day we want to celebrate the female founders we have featured on Springwise, and showcase the innovations that exist today because of these empowering women entrepreneurs.

Sahar Hashemi Sahar is the co-founder of a hugely successful chain Coffee Republic, as well as her own venture Skinny Candy. She developed Coffee Republic into a major high street brand with a GBP 30 million turnover, and in 2005 established Skinny Candy to fill a gap in the British confectionary market making low-sugar, low-fat sweets an chocolates. Read the interview here » Julia Salasky Julia is an ex-UN lawyer who founded CrowdJustice. The website is a platform for crowdfunding social justice cases, such as state pension inequality for women, low-paid migrant workers, biodiversity loss in Suffolk, and more. Read the interview here »

Sahar Hashemi Sahar is the co-founder of a hugely successful chain Coffee Republic, as well as her own venture Skinny Candy. She developed Coffee Republic into a major high street brand with a GBP 30 million turnover, and in 2005 established Skinny Candy to fill a gap in the British confectionary market making low-sugar, low-fat sweets an chocolates. Read the interview here »