Yesterday, The White House held its first annual United State of Women Summit, featuring innovators, icons and activists for women’s rights across the world, including President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Vice President Joe Biden, Gloria Steinem, and many more.

Each examined the #StateofWomen on topics such as economic empowerment, health and wellness, violence against women, educational opportunity, leadership and civic engagement, and entrepreneurship and innovation. Throughout the day, the Summit celebrated how far women have come. And considering that last week Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nomination – a milestone in United States history – it was fitting. However, the Summit also emphasized that the work is far from done.

In conjunction with the Summit, The White House pledged $50 million to improve the lives of women and girls around the world. One of the most notable initiatives is the new White House Equal Pay Pledge, with participating companies promising to conduct an annual gender pay analysis and reassess their hiring and promotion processes to ensure equity. Before the half way point of the conference, over 28 companies, including retailers Gap, Patagonia, Amazon.com andL’Oreal, to name a few, signed the petition and moved one step closer to closing the gender wage gap and ensuring fairness for all workers.

One of the companies that took the pledge and partnered with The United State of Women Summit is <a href="http://www.toryburchfoundation team task management app.org/”>The Tory Burch Foundation. The Tory Burch Foundation launched in 2014, with a mission to increase the number and size of businesses owned and led by women. Since then, the program has awarded $10 million in loans to female entrepreneurs.

Furthermore, Bank of America has promised to increase funding to $20 million in 2016 and 2017.Via video, Tory Burch explained the importance of women entrepreneurs and introduced five of the 10 TBF fellows.

One woman, Nicole Baldwin, a U.S. Army veteran and founder and CEO of BIAO Skincare (standing for “beautiful inside and out”), started her company in a war zone after realizing the climate in Afghanistan where she was deployed was wreaking havoc on her skin. Another, Mary Molina, started a line of healthy granola bars after her family fell on hard times. She created a solution to provide for her four children and husband and is now estimated to be on track to become the owner of a multimillion dollar business. Laurie Fabiano, president of the Tory Burch Foundation, summed up the talents of the incredible female entrepreneurs with a sentiment we can all support.

“We know women on boards give back more to their companies, so we need to offer a seat at the table,” said Fabiano. “We know women payback loans at a higher rate, so we need to make it easier for women to access capital. And we know women can lead, so lets put women in leadership positions.”

What did you think of the first annual #StateOfWomen conference? Let us know in the comments section below.