By our Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, Feb 14: Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE), Guwahati has partnered with the NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) at IIM Bangalore for the Women Startup Programme this year.
The programme, funded by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, and Goldman Sachs is targeted at aspiring women entrepreneurs.
The programme aims to convert entrepreneurial business ideas by women into business ventures and will provide training in magerial and entrepreneurial skills for the participants. At the end of the training, the programme will provide mentoring, advice and incubation with modest fincial support for selected business plans. For the year 2018-19, the programme intends to incubate 100 women entrepreneurs across the length and breadth of the country.
According to a SSCOM report in November 2017, women entrepreneurs contributed to only 11 per cent of Indian start-ups, and SAHA Fund’s statistics indicate that only 3 per cent of women entrepreneurs have received VC funding. All these observations suggest that the right time to work towards creating and unleashing the potential of women entrepreneurship in India was ‘yesterday’. To unleash the potential of female entrepreneurship, the need for human capital has been widely recognized. It is in this context that this programme aims to build on human capital required for female entrepreneurs. While Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumbai have remained the principal start-up hubs in India, 20 per cent of the start-ups in India in the year 2017 emerged in tier II and III cities. This programme will help in creating unleashing the entrepreneurial potential of aspiring women entrepreneurs in the Northeast.