#StartUpIndia Awakening the force in women entrepreneurs

Women are taking charge and making it work. “When more women work, economies grow. An increase in female labour force participation—or a reduction in the gap between women’s and men’s labour force participation—results in faster economic growth,” says a UN report. Gender disparity in the entrepreneurial arena has until now held us back from economic growth. In 2015, we saw many reports coming up about how gender parity will bring holistic development and economic growth in the country. A report called The Power of Parity by McKinsey estimated a whopping 60% growth by 2025 with the increasing gender neutrality.

Increasing gender parity has directly put women entrepreneurs and aspiring ones in the spotlight. We bring you some reasons why women are big on entrepreneurship this year:

Digital EMPOWERMENT

“The opportunities that today’s world offers in terms of the embracing of the digital media has never existed before and time like this may never come in future as well. Because we are at that brink where anything you think of, you actually can do it as you are digitally empowered,” said Swati Bhargava of CashKaro.com in an interview with shethepeople.tv.

The advent of digital media has increased the number of women entrepreneurs in a very short period of time. Websites on fashion, fund raising, product development, app and other tech driven efforts have women leading ventures. They are going from being job seekers to job creators.

Also Read- This is the best time to be a startup: Sairee Chahal

Investing in WOMEN

Many female-centric venture capitalists like SAHA Fund, Kalaari Capital, Lets Venture have come up to make funding easier for women. Not just this, banks like the Bhartiya Mahila Bank and Mudra Bank are investing in women entrepreneurs and making women financially independent through initiatives by the government.

“The Bank has designed and developed many women centric products like BMB Parvarish – loans for Child Day Care Centres, BMB Annapurna – loans for Catering Centres, BMB Shringaar – loans for setting up beauty parlours etc. The Bank conducts Financial Literacy programmes through all its branches every Saturday. We strongly believe in being a catalyst of change in the lives of women of India,” cited S M Swathi, Executive Director of Bhartiya Mahila Bank on the various programmes created by the bank to help women running small-scale business.

The India StartUp Story

Since focus has been diverted into sustainable development through gender parity, India is working a lot in bringing women from all parts of the country into workforce. The Prime Minister has started so in many programmes to create more opportunities like Skill India, Digital India and now Startup India. And he specially insists on generating women’s interest into his programmes.

Also Watch- Meet the Burgundy Achievers at the Digital Women Awards

Women INSPIRE WOMEN

As we hear about so many women joining entrepreneurship and starting their own ventures, more and more women are getting inspired. Earlier, even the thought of starting something on our own was quite discouraging- those thoughts about the funding, organising and managing a business would look like herculean task. But now with so many women already making it work, others are also getting that much needed push to “startup”.

Picture Credit- Hypepotamus