Tag: Women Entrepreneurship in India

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Business motivation

Stand-Up India Scheme: Banks Sanctions Rs 25,586 Cr to 1.14 Lakh Stand-Up India Accounts To Promote Entrepreneurship Amongst Women, SC & ST Category

Women Entrepreneurs in India (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

With an aim to promote entrepreneurship among women, the government announced that banks have sanctioned Rs 25,586 crore to about 1,14,322 beneficiaries under the Stand Up India Scheme in the last five years. There is a large group of potential entrepreneurs particularly women and Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) who want to set up an enterprise of their own, which allows them to grow and thrive. Such entrepreneurs are spread across country and are bubbling with ideas on what they can do for themselves and their families.

Aspiring SC, ST, and women entrepreneurs are energetic and enthusiastic but may face challenges in converting their dream to reality. Recognizing these challenges, the Stand up India Scheme was launched on April 5, 2016. The scheme aims to promote entrepreneurship at grassroot level focusing on economic empowerment and job creation. This scheme has been extended up to the year 2025.

The objective of Stand-Up India is to promote entrepreneurship amongst women, Scheduled Castes (SC) & Scheduled Tribes (ST) categories, to help them in starting a greenfield enterprise in trading, manufacturing and services sector, by both ready and trainee borrowers.

About Stand Up India Scheme:

  1. Under the scheme, bank loans between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore are provided to at least one Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe borrower and at least one woman borrower per bank branch of Scheduled Commercial Banks.
  2. Started in April 5, 2016, the scheme has benefited 93,094 women entrepreneurs with outstanding loan of Rs 21,200 crore as of March 23.
  3. This scheme, which has been extended up to 2025, covers SC/ST and/or women entrepreneurs, above 18 years of age.
  4. In case of non-individual enterprises, 51 percent of the shareholding and controlling stake should be held by either SC/ST and/or Women Entrepreneur and borrowers should not be in default to any bank/financial institution.

 

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Startup

Startups in India Need To Be Encouraged To Ensure That They Are Not Afraid of Failure: Piyush Goyal

startup ipo india

New Delhi, March 3: Piyush Goyal, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said that startups need to be encouraged to experiment and ensure that they are not afraid of failure. In his address at the CII’s Global Bio India Startup Conclave, Goyal said that in some sense, failure also has its importance, particularly in research, innovation and invention. The Minister emphasised that Indian startups need to be encouraged to experiment and only then they will be able to prove their capacity to go beyond in the long run.

“Our startups need to be encouraged to experiment, to go beyond the run of the mill thinking. We need to ensure that our startups are not afraid of failure. I believe that the country should celebrate failure because it is only when somebody fails, he knows how not to do something,” he said.

Emphasising on the talent in rural India, the minister said that the need of the hour is to engage more with rural India as there is a lot of talent lying there. “You cannot have great innovation and invention coming up through just government initiative, we need to have all sections of business involved. The government should act as an enabler, a service provider,” the minister added.

In India, the government is taking steps to promote startups by launching a slew of initiatives to boost the startup ecosystem in the country. It had launched the Startup India initiative in January 2016 to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and entrepreneurship.

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Startup

Women Entrepreneurship To Get Major Boost As Telangana’s WE Hub and Gujarat’s I-Hub Join Hands To Support Startups in Raising Capital

Women Entrepreneurs in India (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

Hyderabad, January 18: In a bid to give a major boost to women entrepreneurship, Telangana’s WE Hub and Gujarat’s i-Hub have collaborated to help female entrepreneurs. The pact aims to encourage and support startups in raising capital. WE Hub is a State-run platform for Women Entrepreneurs in Telangana while i-Hub is an incubation set up of the Gujarat Government. As part of the MoU, as many as 240 women entrepreneurs will be selected for the pre-incubation program and a total of 20 will be shortlisted for the co-incubation program.

Here’s how the women entrepreneurs would benefit from the Collaboration:

  1. The partnership will initiate pre-incubation program for 240 aspiring women entrepreneurs in the EdTech, MedTech and Fintech sectors in the states of Telangana and Gujarat.
  2. Post three months of pre-incubation program and after rigorous interventions a total of 20 entrepreneurs will be selected for the final virtual/physical co-incubation program.
  3. This co-incubation brings in the startups the opportunity to scale up to viable enterprises and receive solid scale-up rapid growth mentorship from the leaders at i-Hub and WE Hub.
  4. The startups will also have Government supported exposure visits across Telangana and Gujarat, the pact read.

On Saturday, an MoU was signed by Jayesh Ranjan, Telangana Principal Secretary, IT and Industries and Anju Sharma, Principal Secretary Higher and Technical Education, Gujarat.

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Technology

Flipkart and Niti Aayog Collaborate To Enhance Women Entrepreneurship Platform To Help Women Entrepreneurs in India; All You Need To Know About the WEP

Women entrepreneurs in India (Photo Credits: Unsplash)

New Delhi, January 12: With an aim to enhance community experience for women entrepreneurs in India, e-commerce marketplace Flipkart and NITI Aayog have joined hands to launch the revamped Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP). The WEP is a unified access portal which brings together women from parts of India to realise their entrepreneurial aspirations. Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Chief Executive Officer of the Flipkart Group, said MSMEs and start-ups have enabled the industry to better understand their challenges and needs.

The vision of the two partners- Flipkart and NITI Aayog is to make ‘Community’ a very interactive, rewarding and intuitive question and answer platform leveraging WEP resources. Through this, the entrepreneurs can utilise it for fruitful discussions and for sharing knowledge, ultimately benefiting the women entrepreneurs’ ecosystem in India.

Women entrepreneurs face unique obstacles, right from a lack of networking opportunities and mentors to the challenge of balancing work and family. When women come together or form communities, they are better equipped to tackle challenges that come their way, and shared experiences from mentors and professionals can further help them to take their passion and entrepreneurial ambition to new heights.

The idea of the platform was first mooted by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant who announced the setting-up of a Women Entrepreneurship Platform at 8th Global Entrepreneurship Summit held in Hyderabad during 2017, with an overarching theme of ‘Women First, Prosperity for All.’

Here’s all you need to know about Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP):

  1. The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) is a first of its kind, unified access portal.
  2. It aims to bring together women from different parts of India to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations.
  3. The revamped version will also include an additional feature to offer mentorship to the women mentees with specific knowledge concerning a problem area through a dedicated online mechanism facilitated under FICCI-FLO’s empowering the Greater 50% mission, it added.
  4. The ‘Community’ on the WEP platform aims to connect women entrepreneurs seeking clarifications on aspects of setting up new businesses with those who have experience in setting up businesses and hence can contribute by solving queries.
  5. These include queries like registering businesses, GST, funding, effects of the pandemic, progressing already established businesses.

Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant hopes that the WEP will become a digital place for entrepreneurs to not only seek information and support, but also help each other out. He said the WEP will serve as a forum for people’s voices to be heard – helping inform policies and programs to better suit the needs and requirements of people.

Meanwhile, Krishnamurthy said as a homegrown company, the constant and intense engagement with local Indian businesses, MSMEs and start-ups has enabled us to better understand their challenges and needs, adding that the WEP plays a critical role in uplifting and empowering women-led businesses in their growth ambition.

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Startup

Women Entrepreneurship Cell Launched by Maharashtra Govt to Boost Female Engagement in Startups

Women Entrepreneurs in India (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

In a bid to give a major boost to women entrepreneurship in Maharashtra, the state government has announced of establishing of a woman entrepreneurship cell. The special cell that has been launched will work towards enhancing, guiding and training the female entrepreneurs in startups and different entrepreneurship-related sectors. The news was announced by Maharashtra Employment and Entrepreneurship Minister Nawab Malik. The cell is established to improve the innovation-driven entrepreneurship ecosystem in Maharashtra.

The Minister said that there will now be a “Girl-Student Entrepreneurship Club” at schools and universities levels. In these clubs, appropriate coaching will be given to college students who aspire to be budding entrepreneurs in their career. Further, it’ll additionally create incubators for women entrepreneurs and will help them in organising accelerated packages. The Minister further added that the monetary help might be supplied to start-ups established by these women entrepreneurs.

In December, the state government of Maharashtra decided to provide financial assistance to innovative startups which wish to file for patents. Malik had said that in the first phase of the scheme, 125 to 150 startups will be supported with financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. He said in order to survive in a competitive world, it is important for startups and early-stage entrepreneurs to protect their Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

 

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Startup

Planning to Start a Business? Here are 4 Tips for Women to Become Successful Entrepreneurs

Women Entrepreneurs (Photo Credits: Pexels)

Starting a business is not easy. One has to really think out of the box to become a known and successful entrepreneur. When it comes to creative thinking, women are no less! Female entrepreneurs can do wonders if they are given the right guidance and motivation they need. Right from picking up a business idea, creating a business module to funding, a woman can become a successful entrepreneur in no time.

According to research, entrepreneurship rates among women increased by 13 percent versus 5 percent for men, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), which monitors 40 economies from around the world. Female entrepreneurship is growing with each passing but it still has a long way to go. Here are four tips that will empower you to get started today. 5 Schemes Focused on Development of Women Entrepreneurs in India.

Love What You Do

When you are planning to start a new business, keep in mind that you will have to pick a business that you love. Ultimately, you will work with passion for things that you love and wish to do. So, choose a business that you think you will never lose your interest in! As yourself, what are you completely and absolutely passionate about? Maybe it’s a hobby or maybe there is something you’ve been longing to do. When we feel completely and utterly passionate, there is no room for judgment.

Believe in yourself

Sometimes, we doubt our own skills. We often underestimate our talent that leads to failure and rejections. You should always let your passion burn brighter than your fears. Keep in mind that the only thing that you have that no one else has is ‘you’. Your dreams, your passion, your power and the world will be yours. You just need to do one thing- that is, to believe in yourself.

Never give up

Failure is just a part of the deal. If you are afraid of rejections, you will always face hurdles in your business because you are not open to learning new things. This will however, hinder your growth in the long run. For becoming a successful entrepreneurship, all you need to do is keep trying. The formation of great companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google are classic examples of motivating us never to give up on our ideas. Don’t quit. Keep going.

Get feedback

Where there is love and inspiration, you can never go wrong. But you should keep on asking people for feedback. Feedback is critical to validate your business and its reach. It can also help you understand what customers want. You should read reviews, find articles and interact with them to develop and good understanding. Pay particular mind to negative reviews and ask people specifically what they wish they were getting out of the product.

 

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Startup

4 Key Skills Every Entrepreneur Should Have to Be Successful and Stand Out From the Rest

Women Entrepreneurs in India (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

Any person aiming to be a successful entrepreneur will always think out of the box and have several creative ideas as to how to go about in the business. There are key traits to success in small business which attributes no matter what your endeavour is. A great entrepreneur must be able to effectively communicate, sell, focus, learn, and have the skills to manage efficiently. The ability to keep on learning is not just a key entrepreneurial skill, but also a very valuable skill on one’s life. Some of the characteristics are innate, while some others can be nurtured.

If there are new businesses, more jobs will be created in the market. New ideas will pour in and better ways of doing business will be incorporated. Entrepreneurship also makes the marketplace more competitive so that outdated thinking is challenged.

Here are few characteristics of an entrepreneur can take you far in the workplace.

Communication:

Communication holds the key to any business, be it small or big.  Any entrepreneur needs to be an effective communicator to become known in the industry. No matter even if it’s a solo entrepreneur, you need to have the communication skills to attract all the potential that will bring profit to the business. An entrepreneur to be able to communicate with employees, investors, customers among others.

Creativity:

This is the most important entrepreneurship skill that one must possess. If your idea is not out of the box, you will not be able to stand out from the rest in the market.  “They want employees to be able to not only carry out assignments, but also come up with better ways of doing things,” Litzinger says. It is very important to be creative in this competitive world. If you are creative, you can improve your company’s workflow, productivity.

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Persuasiveness:

In order to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to have the quality to persuade people with your creative ideas. Persuasiveness can make you a better negotiator and help you achieve great things in your businesses. You may face hurdles in your business journey, but you will have to convince your client or your co-workers to take actions on certain things, so you need to be persuasive.

Ability and desire to Learn:

Any entrepreneur, who wishes to reach great heights, needs to be always open to learning new things. The ability to learn is one of the most important skills to have in life, be it an entrepreneur or be it anyone else. If a person is able to learn in any situation, even failure, they have the skills necessary to become a successful entrepreneur.

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Startup

Women Entrepreneurship in India: Wadhwani Foundation Emphasises on Adopting Ways to Tap the Untapped Potential of New Women-Led Businesses in the Country

Bengaluru, November 20: Lauding the importance of a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem and the women entrepreneurs in India, Wadhwani Foundation said that by adopting several new measures will tap into the enormous untapped potential of new woman-led businesses. The Wadhwani Foundation is a global not-for-profit championing the development of entrepreneurial ecosystem across the country. According to reports, only a quarter of India’s workforce is female as against a global average of 49 percent, and it is clear that India’s growing entrepreneurial landscape has left behind a key demographic- the women.

Ajay Kela, President and CEO, Wadhwani Foundation said that of the 63 million MSMEs in India, only six percent are women-led, a criminal waste of talent. The Foundation believes that it is the need of the hour to unlock the untapped potential of women entrepreneurs by providing them with a support system comprising of an integrated policy framework with equal focus on rural India, women entrepreneurship programs and skill requirements of women, more gender-responsive financial sector and a conscious integration of the formal and informal networks.

According to a report by IANS, growth driving, business-friendly skills such as relationship building, emotional intelligence, and multitasking are second nature to women. The report said that there is a huge opportunity to empower women in India to choose entrepreneurship by creating networks that promote an ecosystem to motivate and support women entrepreneurs in taking the leap of faith by providing training in the nuances of entrepreneurship.

With women comprising just 14 per cent of the total entrepreneurial base in India, this is India’s big chance to tap into the precious resource of women entrepreneurs so as to realize their true potential. The report said that it is equally important to celebrate the fearless breed of women entrepreneurs who have made it big as role models for inspiring women towards entrepreneurship and facilitating a major mindset shift.