Twenty-five selected women entrepreneurs came together in a hybrid-styled boot-camp in Kolkata as part of an ongoing 'Breaking the Glass Ceiling' project to support women entrepreneurs in eastern and northeastern India.

Organized by the US Consulate General Kolkata in partnership with University of Texas, Austin, and the Nexus Incubator Hub at the American Center in New Delhi from April 19-21, the top ten entrepreneurs participated in a “shark tank” styled pitch session, with the top three finalists getting a direct entry into the next cohort of the 8-12 weeks incubation program run by the Nexus Incubation Center.

The finalists included representatives from small towns and state capitals Ranchi, Patna, Shillong, Guwahati, Imphal, Durgapur, and Kohima.

Key businesses were artificial intelligence-enabled products, healthcare, promote economy, education among others.

The incubation program facilitates further access to networks of industry and government partners, training with veteran commercialization experts from around the world, an extensive mentor network, as well as access to funders specializing in supporting startup, a US Consulate, Kolkata, release said.

The project kicked off in September, 2019, bringing together 60 women entrepreneurs from East and Northeast India to help them scale up their businesses, as well as promote women success stories in entrepreneurial fields traditionally dominated by men.

Addressing the participants virtually, US Consul General Patti Hoffman said, “The US Government supports women’s entrepreneurship around the world. When women are empowered economically, they invest in their families and communities, spurring economic growth and creating more stable societies. The best way to ‘not waste the COVID crisis’ is to ensure that women come back stronger.”

In the first phase of the 'Breaking the Glass Ceiling' project, the participants completed a self-paced six-week online training program, comprising ten modules on innovation readiness from the IC2 Institute of the University of Texas at Austin, through its Global Commercialization Group.

Due to COVID, the program slowed down after phase one, but women entrepreneurs who had proceeded to phase two, utilized their time and the opportunity to collaborate, explore alternate business models, adopt technology to scale up, learn from each other, and pivot to fit to the needs of the pandemic time.

Four of the women entrepreneurs who were in their idea stages have launched their businesses during the pandemic; two are now involved in extensive market research; and the rest survived the many challenges, pivoting to adapt to changing market scenarios, with at least five businesses that have reported partnerships among cohort participants to develop new products, the release said.

(SAM)