4 out of every 5 women in India aspire to start their own business. They want to independent, make more money, be their own boss and turn their passion into a career.
Though in the 21st century, the saying goes around that women are now being given equal opportunities in different realms of life, the truth is they aren’t.
It still exists in subtle forms, at every nook and corner. Male employees will always have discomfort answering to their female boss. People, in general, take a man’s decisions more seriously than a woman’s.
And I’m not complaining that the change isn’t happening fast enough, it is bound to take time.
It isn’t easy to change people’s ideology from ‘women are meant to be in the kitchen’ to ‘women being the leaders’. The change will be gradual.
And the change has already begun, about 80% of the crowd at the 2019 Summit in Delhi was female.
Attending the SheLeadsTech Summit 2019 on April 25 in Delhi, I witnessed the exponential growth of this initiative by Facebook and heard inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs in India.
Also Read: Attending NITI Aayog Women Transforming India Awards 2018
Table Of Contents
What is SheLeadsTech?
If you are hearing the word SheLeadsTech for the first time, let me give you a brief introduction.
It is an initiative by Facebook to uplift women entrepreneurs. When the program was launched in 2017 in Delhi, 50 startups were registered across 12 cities.
In the mid of 2018, the number increased to 170 startups in 24 cities. And according to the latest statistics, there are a whopping 596 startups registered across 87 cities.
How It Benefits Women Entrepreneurs
The program provides mentorship sessions, online AMAs, meetups, training and provides various other resources.
The list of mentors includes one of the most successful women entrepreneurs. Some of the mentors are:
- Durga Raghunath, CEO of Juggernaut
- Naiyya Saggi, CEO & Founder of BabyChakra
- Shalini Prakash, Principal at 500 startups
- Shradha Sharma, Founder & Chief Editor at YourStory
- Shanti Mohan, Founder of LetsVenture
- Kaitlin Lang, Product Marketing Manager at Facebook
and many more.
By signing up for this program, women entrepreneurs will receive technical support from Facebook.
They will be trained on how to use Facebook developer tools to make the best out of it for their startup.
Is Your Startup Eligible for SheLeadsTech Program?
Startups that apply for this program need to fulfill the following criteria:
- The startup should be based in India and have a woman founder/co-founder
- The startup must have launched a working bot in Messenger or a native mobile app in the Google Play Store or Apple App Store related to its core business
They will also get to be a part of the peer community on Facebook, and get a chance to meet the Facebook team.
Apply to the SheLeadsTech Program
From the Panel Discussion at the event
Stop instantly judging yourself & other women
Founder & Chief Editor at YourStory
Shradha Sharma, Founder of YourStory shared the bitter truth that women are often quick to judge each other on the basis of their appearance.
Compared to men, women step back quicker in order to prevent hurting someone by sharing their perspectives.
But it’s okay to not be polite all the time, we have to step up and stand for ourselves. Because if a man did this, he would be tagged as ambitious, while a woman would be tagged as being too bossy.
And as a woman, the best way in which we can support other women in the community is by not judging them instantly.
The notion of that implies a woman is settled in life only if she has a husband and a child has got to go.
Getting married and having a baby aren’t the only two goals of a woman’s life.
Importance of having a mentor
Anisha Singh, Founder & CEO of mydala.com and now a Venture Capitalist, pressed on the importance of having a mentor.
A mentor doesn’t have to be a person working at a level above you, it can be you, colleague, as well.
If you need, you can even have more than one mentor, each mentor has a different perspective to give. They aren’t supposed to make decisions for you, but to help you in the problem-solving process.
There is always a bias
Kanika Tekriwal, CEO of JetSetGo shared her experiences working in the male-dominated Aviation Industry.
Kanika said she was often mistaken as a secretary, assistant at events and asked who was she accompanying with.
People aren’t used to seeing women as their leaders. Kanika shares how out of all of her clients, only one is a women.
Aviation Industry was clearly not a field where women made appearance, but it is undergoing a change for good.
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Garima, I was present in this summit. It was heartening to witness an event where women outnumbered men in an event related to technology and entrepreneurship. I met a lot of existing and aspiring women entrepreneurs and exchanged a lot of fresh perspectives. U believe that women has equal and better potential than men because of few of their qualities such as multi tasking, them being empathetic and less egoistic and their ability to follow instincts etc. I am glad that you wrote about this.
Yes, it was indeed inspiring to be in the same room as so many of India’s women entrepreneurs breaking the stereotypes. I hope the initiative, SheLeadsTech keeps empowering Indian women furthermore. I’m tired of hearing people say that the only way to be settled in life, for a woman, is by marrying the ‘perfect man’.
I guess that the trend will change pretty soon. We would find more successful women around and may be people would start saying that for a man to find a more successful woman in his life to get settled. I mean who wouldn’t like to marry ‘Shradha Sharma’ and other like her. I learnt a lot from other women in the summit and must say that I won’t mind working as an ‘assistant’ or ‘under’ any such successful women.