by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Business Summit, Entrepreneurship, Events, Medium Enterprise, SMEs, Women Entrepreneur, World
By Bhavana Akella,
Toronto : Computer maker Dell will celebrate empowering women entrepreneurs from the world over at a three-day global summit from Sunday in this Canadian metropolis.
“The ninth edition of the annual Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) from July 15-17 connects women entrepreneurs from across the world with networks, sources of capital, knowledge and technology,” said the US-based Dell Technologies in a statement ahead of the event.
The summit provides a platform to about 200 women business leaders, founders and entrepreneurs from countries like Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Denmark, France, India, Israel, Japan and US to discuss issues on scaling and growing their businesses.
Since its inception in 2010, the annual gathering of businesswomen from the world over was held at San Francisco in the US, Cape Town in South Africa, Berlin in Germany, New Delhi and Shanghai in China among other cities.
Dell’s senior women executives, including Chief Customer Officer Karen Quintos, Senior Vice-President Christine Fraser, Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand Angela Fox are among others who will be present at the three-day event.
Women leaders from other technology firms like chip maker Intel’s Canada Director Elaine Mah, global software major Microsoft Canada’s social media head Roisin Bonner, London-based Ernst & Young’s investment banker Marla Brefka Heller and Canada’s Minister of Small Business and Tourism Bardish Chagger are the key speakers.
The summit will explore discussions on subjects like the power of women at work, women funding women-run businesses and the future of work.
Though women entrepreneurs worldwide are estimated to be 274 million, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 2016-17, women-led businesses are known to receive fewer investments compared to those run by men, indicating stark gender bias.
A study by America’s Columbia University researcher Dana Kanze revealed that a mere 2 per cent of venture capitalist funding goes to women entrepreneurs in the US, despite they owning 38 per cent of the businesses in the richest country.
Amidst not-so-feasible conditions world across for women to succeed in businesses, the event will give women an opportunity to explore ways of securing funding through various women investors.
The summit will also release a Dell Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) Index, a gender-specific index showing a city’s ability to foster the growth of women-owned firms.
In 2017, the WE Cities Index released at a similar summit in San Francisco found that the Indian capital New Delhi ranked 49 in 50 countries, with New York topping the list.
(Bhavana Akella is in Toronto at the invitation of DWEN. She can be contacted at bhavana.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Women Entrepreneur, World
Colombo : The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has granted $12.5 million to help women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka who have difficulty in accessing finance.
The Finance Ministry in a statement on Monday said that since women led small and medium enterprises face significant difficulties in accessing finance, a grant of $12.5 million will be mobilized from the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative.
Out of the total amount, around $9.5 million will be lent directly to business women through Sri Lankan lending institutions, Xinhua news agency reported. Grants do not have to be paid back.
The Ministry said women entrepreneurs will be given business training in former war-torn north and east and in the Uva and Sabaragamuwa provinces having high rates of poverty.
The World Bank in an earlier report urged Sri Lanka to encourage more women to work as this would not only help the country realize its economic potential but would build on its several achievements.
The report said Sri Lankan women, especially younger ones, do not sufficiently acquire marketable skills, face higher unemployment rates and receive lower wages than men.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Entrepreneurship, Events, News, Women Entrepreneur
Ivanka Trump
Hyderabad : US President Donald Trump’s daughter and his advisor Ivanka Trump on Wednesday called for closing the gender gap in workforce by providing women better access to capital and ensuring better representation in high-value industries.
She underlined the need for more progressive policies to address the stagnation which set in a decade ago in closing the gender gap. She also noted that women dominate those sectors of the economy which are undervalued financially.
Ivanka Trump was speaking at a session on the second day of Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) on Wednesday.
The session on ‘We can do it! Innovations in workforce development ad skills training’ had Cherie Blair, Founder, Cherie Blair Foundation for Women; Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director and CEO, ICICI Bank and Karen Quintos, Chief Customer Officer, Dell EMC as other panelists.
Telangana’s Minister for Information Technology, Industries and Commerce K.T. Rama Rao was the moderator.
The speakers were unanimous that women need to be empowered through education, skill development and access to capital.
Ivanka Trump spoke about the inadequate representation of women in higher education fields in the US. Only 13 per cent of engineers and 20 per cent computer science professionals are women.
The White House advisor listed out the steps being taken by the Trump administration to help close the gender gap in fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Another initiative encourages successful entrepreneurs to mentor young men and women.
Describing technology as a greater driver of entrepreneurship, she said it was reducing barriers to start business and creating flexibility. “Technology offers tremendous opportunities to women entrepreneurs,” she said.
Cherie Blair said inadequate access to capital is the biggest problem faced by women entrepreneurs. She also stressed the need for giving options to women and the support required in terms of policies and eco-system.
Chanda Kochhar was of the opinion that women should have confidence in their capabilities. She said women do not need special policies but only required to be given an opportunity to prove themselves.
She explained how ICICI Bank is helping the women workers, especially young mothers and those who need to take care of their elderly parents by allowing them to work from home.
Referring to the strides India is making in women empowerment, she said there is no other country in the world where 40 per cent of banking sector is headed by women.
Quintos said while more women were joining the workforce, the numbers were not changing fast. She believes the environment was still conducive to women.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Employment, Entrepreneurship, Private Jobs, Social Entrepreneur, Women Entrepreneur
For representational purpose only
By Mudita Girotra,
Mirzapur (Uttar Pradesh) : For Nirmala Maurya, 32, running and managing the home became tedious and she began a different life swimming against the social current. For Nirmala, from Arjunpur Pathak village, her journey of self-reliance and financial independence began in 2010 when she was approached by Rangsutra, a community-owned craft company of over a thousand artisans from remote regions of India which boasts of “ensuring sustainable livelihoods and regular employment for rural artisans”.
The company leverages the growing handicraft businesses to reduce poverty and to empower women by making them financially independent.
In several villages near Mirzapur, many women like Nirmala – with or without their family’s support – made the same attempt to break the deadlock and joined the organisation.
“It was a huge battle against the taboo,” Nirmala told IANS.
She said her husband, against her wishes, wanted her to shift with him to Kohlapur, where he works.
“For the one week training programme that Rangsutra held in Jaunpur, I wasn’t given permission by my parents-in-law…I had to go to my mother’s house in Benaras where I left my kids and went on to get trained,” she said.
It took time to win the family’s support but, Nirmala says, people in the village still have objections. “They keep saying all kinds of things, they joke about it but I don’t care about anything they feel or say as long as my job makes me happy,” she said.
“Many of them can’t even educate their kids but I have been successful in sending all my three daughters to school.”
Now, she has started to save money to build a proper house and to get rid of the mud house that she and her family have been staying in.
She is one of hundreds of women in Uttar Pradesh who, for the past five years, have been making textile products for IKEA, the Swedish-founded, Netherlands-headquartered furniture and home appliances’ giant.
Through Rangsutra, around 600 women now work with IKEA, which still does not have a retail presence in India but is expected to open soon.
“Since 2012 IKEA, has been forming partnerships with social entrepreneurs around the world. The social entrepreneurs IKEA works with gain access to a global marketplace, giving them a strong foundation for self-sufficiency and independence,” said Vaishali Mishra, Global Leader, Social Entrepreneur Initiatives, IKEA.
“These partnerships are a new way to make business where everyone wins. The social entrepreneurs gain access to a global marketplace and are able to provide the artisans with a job on their own terms, helping them stay in their village and at the same time provide for their families,” she added.
Mishra said that across the years, she has seen lives change.
“I remember the same women were so shy and withdrawn initially. They would not come out in the open without their ghunghats on,” she said. “Today, you see them confidently taking up the job, feeling responsible and confident” about being able to make a financial contribution to the family, she stressed.
Radhika Vishwakarma, 22, had a tough time convincing her mother-in-law, who finally snapped: “Do whatever you want!”
“I felt, all right, she has given her permission,” she laughed.
With little dreams for themselves and big ones for their children, every morning many of these women hail a ride on auto-rickshaws and bicycles to the IKEA workshop here in Mirzapur.
One of them, very humbly, said: “I want my daughter to grow up and become a pilot.”
The workshop has some inspiring, and some very heart-touching stories about women with calibre, women with confidence and about women who dream to become big and move beyond the social barriers.
But then, everybody’s tale is not the same. There were also those whose husbands and parents-in-law were more than ready to let them work.
“Acha hai apne bacho ke liye do-chaar paise kama leti hai. Ghar pe bethe bethe bhi kya karna waise (Nice, she earns for her kids. What’s the point of sitting idle at home, anyway?)” questioned 65-year-old Munni Devi, mother-in-law of Rangsutra employee Rekha.
Her father-in-law Radhe Shyam added: “Zamana badal gaya hai…ab sab pehle se alag aur behtar hai. Kaahe nahi jaegi Rekha kaam karne (Times have changed…it is different and better than before. Why shouldn’t Rekha go to work?)”
“The money I earn, I confidently spend on myself without asking my husband for any support,” said 28-year-old Rekha, who now has around 20 women working under her.
“This independence feels good.”
(Mudita Girotra’s visit to Mirzapur was at the invitation of IKEA. She can be contacted atmudita.g@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Women Entrepreneur
New Delhi : In a bid to uplift women’s entrepreneural spirit in the country, the All India Road Show on Women’s Economic Empowerment through Entrepreneurship (AIRSWEEE) programme aims to impact around 450 women entrepreneurs across 30 cities, Chairperson Seema Chaturvedi said here on Monday.
An initiative of not-for-profit organisation TiE Global, the AIRSWEEE programme was launched in September 2016 with the objective of helping develop business and entrepreneurial skills to empower women economically.
The California-based TiE Global has created significant economic impact by mentoring 125 women from 27 mostly tier-II and tier-III Indian cities.
“The first phase was 125 women, five cities. We had women coming from 27 cities, travelling to those five cities workshops. In our next round, we still have five workshops but we are hoping to get women from 30 cities,” Chaturvedi told IANS in an interaction.
“We will most probably launch our workshops by February-March of next year and then there will be six months of mentoring,” she added.
The five cities included Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), Warangal (Telangana), Jaipur (Rajasthan), Nagpur (Maharashtra) and Durgapur (West Bengal).
The AIRSWEE programme was funded by the US Department of State, which is committed to promoting entrepreneurship in India.
Chaturvedi, who is also the Managing Director of investment banking and knowledge services firm Accelerator Group LLC, announced the group’s commitment to seed the launch of a $25 million early stage private equity fund — Achieving Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) Fund I — specially for women-owned and -led enterprises.
“The first round of funding from the US state department was for us building capacity for 125 women… The impact of round one was that it led our firm to launch the creation of a $25 million fund. Our fund is the outcome of the impact created by AIRSWEEE,” said Chaturvedi.
“In the second round of funding, we are going to be more ambitious. We will actually try to reach a total of 450 women, 150 directly by actually mentoring them.”
In the first phase of the AIRSWEEE programme, TiE Global invited US-based and India-based mentors to train aspiring and early stage women entrepreneurs by conducting skill development workshops in five cities. Twenty-five participants were selected to undergo additional mentoring for a period of six months in the second phase.
Chaturvedi added: “We would love to welcome other partners so that it does not just have to be the US state department funding us. We would love for other foundations to jump in and give us funding so that we can grow this programme.”
—IANS
