The NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial learning (NSRCEl) at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) recently launched a nation-wide Women Start-up Programme (WSP). It is funded by Goldman Sachs, a global investment bank and active investor in India, and supported by the Department of Science & Technology (DST). The WSP is India’s first customised online and classroom initiative designed to enthuse aspiring female entrepreneurs-in-the-making across the country.
The programme seeks to facilitate the growth of women entrepreneurs by providing in-depth training to foster and augment managerial and entrepreneurial skills through mentoring, incubation, and financial support.
The WSP will provide training for up to 12,000 women through its five-week — Do Your Venture — Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), which has been customised to encourage women to systematically identify and test their business ideas. Thereafter, 300 women entrepreneurs-to-be will be shortlisted for a boot camp to be held at partner campuses in the towns nearest to them, where they will receive classroom instructions on communications and customer interaction.
From 300, 100 women entrepreneurs will then travel to IIM-B for a second boot camp, where they will receive classroom instructions on developing a business plan, understanding costing and pricing, sales and marketing, and negotiation skills. During this period, they will also have networking opportunities with successful women entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, IIM-B students, and Goldman Sachs professionals.
After the completion of the boot camp, the entrepreneurs will have their business ideas incubated for a year at a partner institution of their choice where each woman will also receive Rs 30,000 per month for financial support and funding from a small prototype fund to run their ventures. The partner institutions are CIIE’s Innocity, Ahmedabad, IIM Indore, IIM Nagpur, IIM Udaipur, IIM Visakhapatnam, and Presidency University, Kolkata. For registration, log on to http://wsp.nsrcel.org for registration.
Among the top 15 ideas selected for incubation, Ntalents.ai, which uses data to assist companies discover their top sales talent, founded by Deepika Anu and Mayank Sharma, has successfully become a revenue-generating venture with clients that include NestAway, Zoojoobe, JustOrganik, and EAI Consultancy.