NEW YORK - They are bloggers, engineers and chefs - American women entrepreneurs who want to emulate the success of Facebook No.2 Sheryl Sandberg or General Motors CEO Mary Barra.

And to break that glass ceiling, they have found a new weapon: Speed-dating style networking events. No men allowed.

To shouts of "one, two, three - change!" and "one, two, three - switch!" they mingled at the first event organised at the annual women entrepreneurs festival run by the Interactive Telecommunications Programme (ITP) at New York University last week.

About 280 women of all ages and professions were given three minutes to get to know each other, swop business information and exchange cards before moving to the next person.

It is the business equivalent of the matchmakers' speed-dating phenomenon that took off about a decade ago as a chance for the loveless to quickly meet multiple people in the hope of snaring a date.

Pairs of women group and regroup, exchanging business cards as they go. Some nod and smile, others stifle a yawn, break into laughter or screw up their eyes in concentration before the emcee calls on them to move to their immediate neighbour.

The rules are simple, said Ms Nancy Hechinger, an ITP faculty member and co-founder of the event: Three minutes to introduce yourself, your business and your passion in "hopefully semi- controlled chaos".

Real estate agent Rosemarie Gambetta - who wants to turn her blog www.cheapeatsinc.com about dining out on a budget into an online restaurant guide, mobile app and business - said the event was a great exercise without the pressure of meeting a man.

"Women are not used to selling themselves... you do not want to come off as being too aggressive," she said.

Ms Denise Courter, who left Wall Street to found a children's site, www.FiDiFamilies.com, said it was an opportunity to meet "inspirational women".

"So many times, I went to conferences that were men-centric, and this is focusing on women, and that is very exciting because we are all able to help each other up the ladder," she said.

Despite high-profile success stories such as Ms Barra's at General Motors, only 15 per cent of US companies and only 4.5 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies are run by women.

The event was opened by Ms Anne-Marie Slaughter, who in 2012 sparked a furore with an essay in The Atlantic magazine asking if it was possible for working mothers "to have it all".

Ms Slaughter gave up a high- flying job at the US State Department in order to take up a role at Princeton University, which enabled her to spend more time caring for her two sons.

"It is exactly where we need to be - encouraging women to start things, to make things on their own," she said.

Ex-chef Sashka Rothchild, a founder of Standbuy, a cancer fund-raising tool, has just had a child. "I was way out of practice, so this is a good way to get back into the saddle," she said.

Ms Katie Boyko, founder of the DatingbyThreeDegrees.com website, also went home satisfied. "I did a little bit of A/B testing, what is the most concise way to get the message across... everybody is the room was a potential new client," she said.