Women Entrepreneurship Platform – NITI Aayog State Workshop on Women-Led Development through Entrepreneurship: A Remarkable Success in Arunachal Pradesh!

Under its State Support Mission, NITI Aayog held the Second State Workshop on Enabling Women-led Development through Entrepreneurship. The Workshop held in collaboration with the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) and the Government of Arunachal Pradesh was held at the Dorjee Khandu State Convention Center, Itanagar, on 24 November 2023. The workshop focused on the north-eastern region and was attended by representatives from all 8 north-eastern states.

The Chief Guest, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Shri Pema Khandu, speaking in the inaugural session, announced the establishment of a Women Entrepreneurship Cell with initial funding of INR 5 crore to support women entrepreneurs in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Cell will conduct specialized programs, including incubation and acceleration, reflecting the Government’s commitment to “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas, Sabka Prayas.” Congratulating WEP on its efforts at building an ecosystem for women entrepreneurs, he hoped for continued collaboration with WEP.

Chief Secretary, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, Shri Dharmendra, in his address, highlighted the Government’s initiatives to foster women’s entrepreneurship in the region and emphasized the government’s support in their access to finance, skill development, digital literacy, and mentorship.

Mr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission NITI Aayog, addressed the gathering through Viksit Bharat 2047 with a vision towards enabling an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Ms. Anna Roy, Senior Advisor, NITI Aayog and Mission Director WEP, highlighted the mandate of NITI Aayog to foster cooperative federalism and the salient features of the State Support Mission in furthering this agenda. She underscored WEP’s role as a catalyst for women-led development in the Northeast. Leading women entrepreneurs shared their journey and insights in harnessing policy ecosystems, the role of philanthropy, and collaborations to create a transformative impact for women entrepreneurs.

As part of the workshop, the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh and the Chief Secretary launched many initiatives for women entrepreneurs of the north-eastern states under the Award to Reward (ATR) of WEP, which were specifically curated in partnerships with industry and ecosystem leaders. The first launch was the “CatalyseTech EntreprenueHer Innovation Challenge”, an Atal Innovation Centre-SELCO Foundation partnership focused on supporting clean energy entrepreneurship. The ATR will empower women entrepreneurs in critical sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, and micro-businesses and aims to create awareness and solutions for sustainability and climate resilience among women entrepreneurs.

The second launch was the “Maitri program” in partnership with MakeMyTrip for training and capacity building of women homestay owners in the north-eastern region to foster the growth of women entrepreneurs. The ATR program will provide homestay owners with training on using online marketplaces, including MakeMyTrip, and market their businesses online to create a strong digital presence.

The next set of collaborations focused on building an enabling environment for women enterprises. This included the launch of the “NASSCOM Future Skills Program”, which will provide skilling to women entrepreneurs from three backgrounds: Non-tech, Semi-tech, and Tech through short learning modules to help entrepreneurs test concepts through structured experiments, refine business strategy, raise capital to grow their business and create value for their customers.

The “FLO MSME Assist Centre” by the FICCI FLO was launched as a helpdesk for North-Eastern women entrepreneurs to provide them with a platform for mentorship and networking opportunities, fostering partnerships, accessing new markets, and providing skill development and capacity building tailored to the needs of women entrepreneurs, while also creating international business opportunities for them.

The “Womenpreneur” program by BITS Pilani and Aditya Birla Foundation was launched to recognise women enterprises transforming India through tech-led approaches. This program provides an opportunity for women entrepreneurs to participate in an 18-month-long incubation program that provides one-on-one mentoring and market support for scaling up and an opportunity to win seed Funding of up to Rs. 10 Lacs.

To extend the reach of WEP, the etch partners, Mastercard and SquarePanda, announced the new features on WEP, viz. content in 12 languages, chatbot, and several other features.

Hon’ble Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh urged the participants to register on the WEP platform (www.wep.gov.in) and get benefits from all the programs that were launched by him.

The workshop recorded over 1500 participants, including women entrepreneurs, local self-help groups, government officials, industry representatives, incubators/accelerators, financial institutions, philanthropic foundations, and more. The workshop hosted useful sessions for women entrepreneurs to strengthen their entrepreneurial journeys and also featured a tech experience center curated by the SELCO Foundation to showcase sustainable tech entrepreneurs from the north-eastern region.