Owing to changing mindsets and the rapid need for new ideas and fresh blood, more and more women have been seen joining the business sector as entrepreneurs. A recent Facebook study suggested that four out of five women in India aspire to become entrepreneurs. Inspiring more women into entrepreneurship would potentially create as many as 16 million businesses and 64 million jobs by the end of 2021.

According to the sixth economic census, women constitute only 13.76% of the total entrepreneurs, i.e., 8.05 million out of the 58.5 million entrepreneurs in India. Out of this, 2.76 million women work in the agriculture sector, and 5.29 million women work in non-agricultural sectors.

A report from McKinsey Institute research indicates narrowing the gender gap in economic terms could add close to $28 trillion to global GDP by 2025 – with almost $3 trillion added to India’s GDP alone. Achieving gender equality in India would have a larger impact solely due to the sheer number of people present in our country.  Follow Spotlife Asia for the latest news and updates.

The need for fresh outlooks in businesses is also important. A British Council study on social enterprises in India showed that in comparison to male-led social enterprises, female-led social enterprises tend to focus on improving the lives of women, on education and on literacy than male-led social enterprises.  A 2014 paper, Political Reservations And Women’s Entrepreneurship In India, by Ghani and others stated that “97% of working men are employed in male-owned enterprises”. This level of gender segmentation are clearly undesirable and inefficient. Yet, the same is also true for women: 90% of employees in female-owned business in the unorganized sector of manufacturing are females. These findings can be seen as ways to get more women into the workforce, hence helping other women and increasing the overall GDP.

Prominent Women Entrepreneurs:
Chitra Gurnani Daga, an alumnus of the Indian School of Business, along with her husband Abhishek Daga, alumnus of the IIT BHU, started Thrillophilia. It is an Indian adventure travel company.
Falguni Nayyar, CEO of Nykaa, which is a beauty and wellness e-commerce platform for women.
Upasana Taku is the co-founder of Zaakpay and MobiKwik. Zaakpay is a payments company aimed at solving issues with eCommerce in India.

The Think Big Summit 2017 is hosted by Think Through Consulting in partnership with WEConnect International. The event aims to bridge the gap between companies and women entrepreneurs and establish successful collaborations through strategic partnerships.

“As India dips 21 places this year and stands at the 108th position on the Gender Gap Index published by the World Economic Forum; the GOI, Indian MNCs, major corporate and work spaces have come together to create tremendous opportunities in the field of women empowerment. The time has come to innovate, disrupt and think differently. Hence, more sectors and industries need to come forward to support men and women entrepreneurs and adopt a sustainable approach for an entrepreneurial ecosystem. This will be achieved with platforms such as Think Big – 2017,” said Mr Parul Soni, Global Managing Partner, Thinkthrough Consulting.

He says, “TTC-WeConnect designed this unique initiative where women are encouraged to take an individual stand and get on an equivalent platform to come face to face with investors, government bodies and buyers. It truly is a tri-sector approach. Despite these turbulent times, the nation needs to address these issues, surpass this hurdle and come out as winners.”

Think Big 2016 Winners:
Kumud Sharma took over at SuperSevain 2006. Her company aims to provide Enterprise Support Services to its clients. They have pioneered the IT-enabled service delivery model that offers the most efficient and effective way of providing tailor-made solutions to the corporate sector. She is a B.Tech. (Electronic and Communication Engineering) holder from BIT. She was the key in getting her enterprise certified through WEConnect.

Chayaa Nanjappa is the founder-partner of Nectar Fresh. It is now a premier brand of food and nectar processing that employs rural population as the workforce, especially women. The products are sought after by many top hospitality companies such as ITC. So far, Chayaa has interacted with more than 2,000 women through different platforms. She also works with more than 100 farmers and their families. WEConnectsupported her endeavors to spread her business to the US and EU markets, as well as helping out with networking opportunities.

Sonia Sharma of Gurgaon founded Nature Organic in 2011. She was motivated to provide fresh produce to people that wasn’t ridden with pesticides and contaminants,  and also enforce fair practices of farming so as to help farmers and their families. Nature Organic proudly aims to “bring to the fore, the ancient vedic practices of agriculture.”

Pooja Mahajan, after experimenting with movie marketing, opening a restaurant and handling a Tibbs Frankie franchise, set up Yum! Yum!, a dimsum stall shop, that now roughly sells three lakh dimsums a month across its 15 outlets in malls, department stores and high streets of Delhi NCR. The Director of Unitas Foods, she was inspired by snack stalls on the street corners that could rake in high returns at relatively low investment.