The increasing presence of women as entrepreneurs has led to the change in the demographic characteristics of the business and economic growth of the country. Women-owned businesses enterprises are playing a prominent role in society inspiring others and generating more employment opportunities in the country.

There is a need for sustainable growth of women entrepreneurs, to promote balanced growth in the country. By 2022 more than 1 billion women are set to join the economy as leaders, producers, employers, employees, and entrepreneurs. 

The contribution of women to the economy is at the highest point and keeps growing as we speak. Various researches have shown that women-led businesses are outperforming their peers. Businesses, in the past few decades, have been realizing the importance of women in the top leadership to drive sustainable financial returns.

Women entrepreneurs are becoming the face of almost all sectors of the economy and the traditionally male-dominated B2B space is one such sector where women’s participation has been increasing.

Four of such women entrepreneurs who are changing the B2B landscape in the country. 

 1. Smiti Bhatt Deorah, Co-Founder and COO, Advantage Club.

Smiti Bhatt Deorah is a young and enthusiastic entrepreneur who co-founded the Advantage club with Sourabh Deorah. She has worked with Microsoft in the past and has done her master’s in Computer Science from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).

With substantial experience in B2B relationship building and account management, Smiti launched Advantage Club with Sourabh in 2016. The company is an employee-centric organization and offers companies curated deals, rewards, and offers from more than 200 brands.

For Smiti, it all began while working at Microsoft when she felt valued and rewarded by the employee perks and benefits she received. Smiti and Sourabh together recognized the potential employee rewards platforms had and came back to start India’s first employee reward and recognition platform. 

Today the company is profitable and has over 6000 companies as clients, including Café Coffee Day, Samsung, Lifestyle, PNB Home Loans, Max Healthcare, and several others. Personalized rewards offered under Advantage Club are a measure that helps companies to improve employee satisfaction and engagement.

2. Upasana Taku, Co-Founder, and COO, Mobikwik.

Upasana, a Standford University alumni, co-founded digital payments and financial services startup Mobikwik with Bipin Preet Singh back in 2009 to simplify payments in India. The company started as an e-wallet service and today has expanded in three business lines – consumer payments, payment gateway, and financial services. 

Before starting a venture of her own Upasana headed many high impact projects for companies like HSBC and PayPal and gained immense experience in payment systems. She is one of the most recognized faces in the fintech space in the country.

3. Rashi Aggarwal, Co-Founder, and COO, Zypp.

Rashi Aggarwal co-founded Zypp India’s 1st electric bike and e- Scooter sharing app and platform in 2017 with Akash Gupta. This dockless eco-friendly bike-sharing platform started as a B2C business, and recently it has shifted focus towards the B2B sector with clients ranging from food delivery business to e-commerce establishments. Previously a fashion entrepreneur, this is the second entrepreneurial venture undertaken by Rashi who dreams of a cleaner and carbon-neutral world.

4. Ankiti Bose, Co-Founder, Zilingo.

Mumbai based, Ankiti Bose, is the first Indian female co-founder and CEO of a unicorn status startup. She has been featured in Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list in 2018 and Fortune’s 40 Under 40 along with Bloomberg 50 in 2019. Her achievements come at the back of Zilingo, a technology and commerce platform in the fashion industry that offers services for players across the fashion supply chain.

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In India, where more than 70 per cent of people of 1.34 billion live in remote villages, electricity is a luxury for many. While successive federal and central governments earmark millions of dollars for electrification of villages every year, electrification still remains in paper. Some politicians collude with bureaucrats to siphon off funds meant for electrical infrastructure, by exploiting the illiteracy and ignorance of people.

As a result, many remote villages in the country still remain in the dark. The residents in the hinterland India are still not sure as to when they will see their homes lit up. They are too illiterate to understand that the system they live in is so rot that they may not probably see electricity in this life-time.

Shockingly, this callousness happens at a time when the world has already moved from fossil energy to renewable/green energy.

An Indian scientist has come up with a solution to this perennial problem. He is getting accolades for this invention — solar tree — which he believes will give wings to the dream of millions of villagers who have been deprived of electricity for long.

“More than 70-80 per cent of Indians live in villages, most of which still don’t have access to electricity,” Sibnath Maity, Chief Scientist at the Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), said. “It is not feasible for the government to do the electrification in villages as it is cost millions of dollars.”

Solar energy is the need of the hour, but people are reluctant to set up solar panels as it is expensive and requires vast expanse of lands. “Solar tree is going turn their fortunes around,” he said.

But what is so special about this solar tree? “You don’t need to fret about space constraints. Our solar panels ‘grow’ on trees. It will not takes more than four square feet of land space to set this up. It can produce about 3 KW of power, which is more than enough to power five households in the vicinity.

This solar tree, which resembles a tree with branches at different tiers, could be squeezed into rooftops and highways, he explained.

Sibnath started working on this project ways back in 2006. His invention remained unnoticed for more than eight years. It eventually saw the light of the day when the central government noticed it. ” I eventually got the recognition when Union Minister Dr. Harshvardhan inaugurated one of my solar trees built in Delhi a few months ago,” he said.

Also Read: This 23-year-old advises India’s premier investigation agencies on cyber security. And he is a school dropout

For people in the remote villages in Bihar, Bengal, Rajasthan, the solar tree is a godsend. They can now heave a sigh of relief that they don’t need to walk kilometres to nearby villages to recharge their mobile phones or other electronic devices.

The solar tree is currently priced at INR 5 lakh, which is definitely beyond the reach of a  ordinary man who struggles to meet both the ends. If the government subsidises the project, he may be able to sell it at affordable prices.

“The cost depends on the requirement. If you need just a 3KW solar tree, it costs INR 3 lakh (US$ 4,500). Some state governments provide up to 30 per cent subsidy for alternative energy setups, while some others 80 per cent. On the top of it, central government also provides some grants. So it is not going to burn a big hole in people’s pocket,” he explains.

A few months ago, he got a request from a farmer in Berhampur in Odisha to set up a solar tree, capable of producing 5KW of power for him to run a motor pump in his farm. Sibnath hopes to see more such requests come in.

As of today, Maity has erected six solar trees in different villages in India.

The solar tree is creating waves not just in India, but in other parts of Asia too. He received queries from places like Lakshadeep and Andaman Nicobar (two Indian archipelagos), where land availability is a huge issue.

“Unlike other solar panels, we promise 100 per cent efficiency. Plus, it does not need regular maintenance and has a long life. We want to see the entire India illuminated in the near future,” concluded Maity, who had previously designed a portable solar pump and a three-wheeler solar vehicle.

Also Read,

Manohar Parrikar says innovation fund to encourage defence startups

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A young man in his thirties used to stand on the footpath opposite the famous Tata Cancer Hospital at Mumbai and stare at the crowd in front- fear plainly written upon the faces of the patients standing at death’s door; their  relatives with equally grim faces running around.. These sights disturbed him greatly..

Most of the patients were poor people from distant towns. They had no idea whom to meet, or what to do. They had no money for medicines, not even food. The  young man, heavily depressed, would return home. ‘Something should be done for these people’, he would think. He was haunted by the thought day and night.

At last he found a way-

He rented out his own hotel that was doing good business and raised some money. From these funds he started a charitable activity right opposite Tata Cancer Hospital, on the pavement next to Kondaji Building. He himself had no idea that the activity would continue to flourish even after the passage of 27 years. The activity consisted of providing free meals for cancer patients and their relatives. Many people in the vicinity approved of this activity. Beginning with fifty, the number of beneficiaries soon rose to hundred, two hundred, three hundred. As the numbers of patients increased, so did the number of helping hands.

As years rolled by, the activity continued; undeterred by the change of seasons, come winter, summer or even the dreaded monsoon of Mumbai. The number of beneficiaries soon reached 700.

Mr Harakhchand Sawla, for that was the name of the pioneer, did not stop there. He started supplying free medicines for the needy. In fact, he started a medicine bank, enlisting voluntary services of three doctors and three pharmacists. A toy banks was opened for kids suffering from cancer. The ‘Jeevan Jyot’ trust founded by Mr Sawla now runs more than 60 humanitarian  projects.  A thousand salutes to his boundless energy and his monumental contribution!

There are people in this country who look upon Sachin Tendulkar as ‘God’- for playing 200 test matches in 20 years, few hundred one day matches, and scoring 100 centuries and 30,000 runs. But hardly anyone knows Harakhchand Sawla, leave alone call him ‘God’ for feeding free lunches to 10 to 12 lac cancer patients and their relatives. We owe this discrepancy to our mass media!

Also Read: This 23-year-old advises India’s premier investigation agencies on cyber security. And he is a school dropout

Crores of devotees hunting for ‘God’ in Vithoba temple at Pandharpur, Sai temple at Shirdi, Balaji temple at Tirupati will never find ‘God’. God resides in our vicinity. But we, like mad men run after ‘God-men’, styled variously as Bapu, Maharaj or Baba. All Babas, Maharajs and Bapus become multi-millionaires, but our difficulties, agonies and disasters persist unabated till death. For last 27 years, millions of cancer patients and their relatives have found ‘God’, in the form of Harakhchand Sawla.

Now 57, Mr. Sawla still works with same zeal and passion for the benefit of cancer patients. His Trust now has about 60 humanitarian projects running under its head. A million salutes to this man, who has served selflessly to thousands. He truly is a Godfather for such cancer patients.

Mr Sawla deserves his fair share of fame. So, here we shared his story…

If you are willing to contribute your bit to this humanitarian initiative, don’t hesitate to send unused medicines of any kind, books, clothes, or toys to Jeevan Jyot Cancer Relief and Care Trust, 3/9 Kondaji Chawl, Jerbai Wadia Road, Parel, Mumbai – 400 012. Call or log on to www.jeevanjyot.in for further details.

Reference & Image Credit: Vegmomos

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He could have become yet another ordinary child doing some odd jobs after dropping out of school at the age of 13, had his love for computers not come to his rescue.

Today, he is one of the most sought-after cyber security experts in India. And his clientele include various premier investigation agencies, who come to him to get his assistance on cases related to cyber crime.

“When I was a kid, my father used to get me toys and gadgets. Being a curious kid, I would cut them open to understand how they worked,” Ludhiana-born Trishneet Arora told Startagist. “I even ripped open the toys my elder brother used to get, out of curiosity.”

His curiosity grew stronger when he got a computer at the age of 11. This device was an opening for his entry into the vast world of cyber security.

“This computer was my life and my interest in this gadget grew by the day. I learnt all about computing, hardware, and internet. To acquire more knowledge, I used to read a lot of books and watched videos,” he explained.

But his parents were not supportive of his new-found passion and they wanted him to excel in studies rather than follow his dream and passion. But he was not the one who could easily be cajoled. He spent most of his times on this gadget.

As a result, he failed in the final exams in the 8th standard. He then dropped out of school and completed his class X through distant learning.

Over the next few years, Arora’s love for technology grew even stronger and he used to be engrossed for hours learning about gadgets. Within two years, he amassed a lot of information about computer systems, internet, basics of IT infrastructure and little bit of coding.

Gradually, he learned the basics of hacking. In 2012, he realised that there was a huge demand for ethical hackers in the country. But rather than being just another hacker, he wanted to give back to people in terms of what he knew about hacking and security frameworks.

He got calls and invitations from various schools and colleges to conduct training and workshops on cyber security. He also got an opportunity to address students at IIT Roorkie, which led to corporate trainings.

This was a breakthrough in Arora’s life. Sensing a huge opportunity in cyber security, he  started TAC Security Solutions, a cyber security startup, in 2013 in Chandigarh. “While cyber security is an vital factor for enterprises, it is often neglected in today’s scenario. We are trying to make a difference to governmental and private organisations security infrastructure and create awareness on security challenges,” he added.

TAC Security is now a leading cyber security startup in India. It has now grown beyond India and provides protection to corporations against network vulnerabilities and data theft. It also provides cyber security training to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s premier investigative agency, in addition to the Punjab Police, Gujarat Police, Reliance Industries Limited, Amul, Ralson (India), and Avon Cycles. Outside of India, it now also has clients in Dubai and the UK.

TAC recently rolled out TAC-CERT to help those whose websites, emails, cloud data, and other digital assets, from getting hacked. The company also received funding from Vijat Kedia, MD of Kedia Securities.

“”We are now in talks with VCs to raise more than $10 million in Series A to expand our business and launch new products,” he concluded.

Now, at the age of 23, he has already accomplished a whole lot things that his peers could not even dream of. He has also three books on hacking: The Hacking Era, Hacking Talk, and Hacking With Smart Phones.

The post This 23-year-old advises India’s premier investigation agencies on cyber security. And he is a school dropout appeared first on Startagist.

Wearable has now become a household name of sorts. You can see fitness enthusiasts  running on the streets early in the morning with an IoT device on their wrist, regularly checking the distance they covered/steps taken. Some others use wearables/smart watches to count their heart beats, or get suggestions on their food intake to maintain good health.

A few months ago, Hyderabad-based Hug Innovations launched a smartwatch that boasts of having all the above features, in addition to an SOS button that could send alerts to your phone contacts when you are in distress or in danger.

But this startup is different. This venture, called Broadcast Wearable Pvt Ltd, based out of Hyderabad, has designed what it calls the world’s first programmable and touch-enabled T-shirt that can change designs and slogans according to your choice by a simple tap on the logo.

The startup was launched in 2016 by Ayyappa Nagubandi, a serial entrepreneur with 17 years of experience. Broadcast’s T-shirt consists of tiny LEDs that connect with the accompanying app to give you complete control over what you wish to display on your wear. The T-shirt will reflect what is on your mind – from the good to the bad, from the beautiful to the ugly.

“One change the slogans whenever he/she wants. In addition, It allows you to programme a display embedded in a regular cotton T-shirt using your smartphone. The system would let you display pictures, text, and whatever’s on your mind on the T-shirt for all to see,” Ayyappa said.

In July last year, the startup raised US$117,927 via popular crowd-funding platform Indiegogo, which was almost four times its actual target figure. The company also got several orders from companies in India and the US for the T-shirts.

But Ayyappa is not ready to stop just here. In fact, the programmable T-shirt is just the beginning of Broadcast Wear’s entry into the huge world of wearables.

“Ever since our campaign went live on Indiegogo, we have been busy with not only creating prototypes and getting ready for the production of the Broadcast T-shirt, but also with creating more wearables that will disrupt the fashion and technology markets,” he said.

“After extensive research, we have now developed competencies in merging technology with textiles. In addition to touch-enabled clothing, we have created reflective clothing and interactive clothing. We are now working on creating a wearable phone,” he added.

With a team of 20 people, the startup is currently working on an illuminative/reflective clothing. “We create clothes that bring out the sparkle in your eyes. Lined with LED and ELD wires, we create light-emitting clothing for every occasion and every reason. Jaltee is our line of clothing that glows. The clothes are embedded with ELD wires that make designs glow at the press of a button. This is water proof and comfortable to wear,” Ayyappa elaborated.

Jaltee is an acronym and each alphabet represents the name of an inspiring person who brought in revolutionary changes to the world — Steve Jobs, Isaac Asimov, Linus Torvalds, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein.

The company is also working on a line of interactive clothing. “With geographical boundaries disappearing, it is not surprising to see man and machine communicating like never before. We, at Broadcast Wear, have taken interactivity to the next level, enabling your phone to communicate with your T-shirt. All you have to do is type out a slogan or create a design on the app, and the t-shirt will reflect the same.”

“Our range of interactive clothing includes a Facebook Like T-shirt, where you can display the number of Likes your Facebook page has (that updates itself in real-time), a T-shirt that displays the number of steps you have walked (encourages people to take up exercising), and a safety jacket that is paired with a sensor and a battery to take in information about daylight and switch itself on the moment it gets dark,” Ayyappa explained.

In the midst of hundreds of clothing brands, Jaltee stands apart with its focus on creating clothing that is technology-enabled and customer-friendly, claims Ayyappa. In his view, Jaltee is not just a clothing brand but a harbinger of new trends in clothing. Trends that are soon set to storm the world of fashion. 

“Jaltee ensures that you stand majestic and be the attention grabber at every event or party. Be it the T shirt that glows in the dark or the Salwar Kameez that lights up the room or the bag which changes the design on it as per your wish and command. Jaltee fuses technology with everyday clothing and creates magic,” Ayyappa went on.

Let’s wish all the very best for Ayyappa and the team!

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