Giving power to the powerless

“Migrapreneur” Priyanka Ashraf founded The Creative Co-Operation to drive better outcomes for women of colour in tech start-ups. She is this week’s Changemaker.

While Priyanka Ashraf’s career has moved through law, technology, consultancy and start-ups, her passion for community and social justice has always been a guiding light.

Ashraf practised as a lawyer before her frustration with the ineffectiveness of legal architecture led her to pursue an interest in Blockchain technology and the intersection of smart contracts with the law.

Inspired by the opportunity to scale social impact through tech, Ashraf transitioned into the start-up world, working as a consultant for a number of big industry names, including FinTech Australia, Stone and Chalk, PwC and ConsenSys. While there, she came to understand the non-negotiable role of the community in helping start-ups and venture capitalists serve their portfolios.

A self-described ‘migrapreneur’ – a migrant entrepreneur – Ashraf completed accelerator programs with Catalysr and TechReady Women Academy, and worked as an expert mentor for the Australian government’s Boosting Female Founders Initiative.

In 2020, she founded The Creative Co-Operative (CCO), a social enterprise that addresses the employment and economic access barriers faced by migrant women of colour in the tech ecosystem, which is 100 per cent led by the community it serves.

Since then, Ashraf and The CCO have been included in The Australian’s List of Top 100 Innovators 2022; recognised as Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 by Women’s Agenda; and awarded Community Hero of The Year 2021 in SmartCompany’s Smart50 Awards.

“For me it was a realisation that I may be a woman of colour, but there are still privileges I enjoy that others don’t. How am I going to use whatever privilege I have to pay it forward and encourage others to recognise they have the power to do so too? That they are not at all powerless but are powerful,” said Ashraf.

What does this job mean to you?

2020 felt like the year that the world stood up and listened – the murder of George Floyd shook the world and impacted us all in one way or another. For me personally, it was a wake-up call and triggered a process of questioning why that’s what it took for many of us to educate ourselves of the injustices faced by First Nations peoples when we’ve been living on long unceded lands.

This job represents the vehicle to solving the problem I want to see solved in the world, and it starts within CCO itself.

The CCO is Australia’s first 100 per cent migrant woman of colour owned, led and operated social enterprise challenging systemic racism by driving better economic and social outcomes for other women of colour through the creation of paid work and capacity building.

Through this job, my goal is to push for intersectionality in the Australian start-up ecosystem where Bla(c)k women and women of colour start-up founders and operators are not only seen but have structural access and advancement.

What does a typical work day look like for you?

Generally speaking, a workday ideally starts with a list. I have focus time in the morning as that’s when I can concentrate the best. After that, I join meetings with colleagues or clients.

As a team we have a monthly social catch-up, which without fail, hugely fills our cups each time – they’re truly a great group of committed and caring people I love to collaborate with.

As a typical start-up, no one day is ever the same. Being able to adapt and problem solve enables me to thrive in this setting, however at two years old, we’re now at the tail end of the ‘swim or sink’ early stage days. We’ve validated what works and where we will invest our long-term efforts.

Part of the plan is the four day work week from 2023. We have already started trialling this but when we work with many collaborators who work on their own timelines, it has been quite challenging. From January 2023, it will be a hard no for Mondays, though!

It’s a rewarding feeling that we’ve built the security that enables us to now slow down in order to spend time on proactive strategy setting versus reactive activity.

What drives you?

My parents, who live in Bangladesh. My father is a former freedom fighter. He is from one of the poorest regions in Bangladesh, and on the battleground, he lost his leg at the age of 22.

Although he built a successful career, he had to work so much harder to get there and I refuse to rest on my laurels as a result of his hard work. His fight against the oppressive regime of former West Pakistan is what has made me passionate about social justice from a very young age.

My parents sacrificed so much so I could be here. When I am facing any type of challenge, I try to gain perspective by thinking of how much harder they had it and it helps bring me back to my why, which is what also drives me.

What is your proudest achievement so far?

I’m very proud of how far we’ve come to date. We developed and delivered Australia’s first anti-racism campaign specifically targeting the start-up ecosystem, called #ShareThePlatform. The campaign was exposed to over four million people across 33 different countries, with over 65 campaign partners, in under seven weeks – all in the middle of a global pandemic.

Within our first year, the CCO made over 200 financial transactions and opportunities for our communities.

We published our report which exposed the funding gap that is experienced by Bla(c)k women and women of colour early stage founders and delivered Australia’s first ever intersectionality-informed capacity building program working with Bla(c)k women and women of colour to start or grow their start-ups, supporting 75 founders from our communities in less than six months.

Through this flagship community start-up program Anyone Can, my hope was for Bla(c)k women and women of colour to feel less like the outsider in a room full of innovators and I’d say the makeup of the rooms today compared to before we started, certainly speaks to that.

I am at my proudest when I see our program graduates out there kicking goals because we are normalising that Bla(c)k women and women of colour achieving, leading and thriving is not the exception but the norm.

Finally, I’m proud that after everything we’ve faced in the past two years where the founder and the team are from the very communities we serve and therefore also subject to barriers resulting from systemic, interpersonal and internalised racism – we are not only still standing, but we are stronger than ever.

What are some of the challenges facing your sector?

In a white male-dominated start-up ecosystem, some women might struggle to pave a way for themselves, facing disproportionate barriers in a space that is, quite frankly, depicted as a white man’s world. For Bla(c)k women and women of colour, these barriers increase tenfold.

The CCO advocates for our communities of Bla(c)k women and women of colour to have access to the networks, knowhow and knowledge needed to make progress in the ecosystem. As well as access to tech skills, tech jobs and tech experience, right from the starting block.

I’m a first generation migrant myself who arrived here with zero networks or community access. There are various other intersections across the team. We face the same barriers our communities do, and this tends to be forgotten because The CCO grew far and fast. It’s not that those barriers didn’t exist for us. They did. They were even higher than they are now. We just worked triple-time to chip away at them. I’m not willing to wait another generation before I see a change, as much as I have a right to rest.

Is it right it had to be this hard? Absolutely not. However, I can dream all day that those in positions of power would unlearn, would use their power so it didn’t have to be this hard for others, but that means relying on their pace of unlearning, on their terms and it’s not something we’ve seen yet nor something we are willing to take a ‘wait and see’ approach.

We’re about action and we understand the territory that comes with that – it has not phased us yet.

How do you relax after work?

By spending quality time with family and friends.

What do you want your legacy to look like?

It’s taken centuries for systemic racism to perpetuate the way it has and it will take centuries for it to be dismantled. Like the generations before us that have made our paths easier, I would consider my goals met if this can be achieved for the next generation.

It’s not a problem that can be solved by one person and it’s a solution that benefits us all. If I can show by example that we work best together instead of against, whether that’s working with co-conspirators or working together amongst us, that would be half the battle won.