Wonder Women in Tech: The Doers

It’s fascinating to learn about the trials, tribulations and achievements of women tech-entrepreneurs, as was evident from a host of lively panel discussions at the Women Entrepreneurs Summit & Awards 2020.

What makes a women entrepreneur stand out when compared to their male counterparts? Some talked about the glaring differences in perception while others batted for celebrating entrepreneurship that is ‘gender-neutral’.

Divya Lal, Managing Director, Fliplearn Education described women entrepreneurs as “sincere, perfectionists and modest”. “But when we use the words women and techies in the same breath, it doesn’t fit in the same frame. The image that is formed in your mind is not that of a female, say 99 per cent of the time,” said Lal who runs an e-learning platform that offers children all across India a personalized learning experience with the help of fun and interactive content.

Lathika Regunathan, CEO, Mimo Technologies said in her company both boys and girls on the system can execute the jobs that come their way. “We have boys and girls on the system who get tasks that range from ‘very simple’ like value added services to ‘very complex’. Financial institutions, retail companies, distribution companies, essentially push out work to us and whoever is close to that task picks it up and executes it further,” said Regunathan whose company is facilitating enterprises in providing their wide range of services in the rural sector, as well as skilling and employing the semi-urban and rural youth.

For others, it was more about sharing their respective success stories. Take the example of Minal Anand, Founder & CEO, GuruQ, a platform that connects students and parents with tutors. “We provide quality tutors, home tutors and even online tutors. We actually ensure that every tutor on our platform goes through a vigorous registration process which includes a proficiency test, there are background checks, so whatever tutor you select is verified and of course really good,” said Anand. “We have tried to create a platform for the Indian education space that has actually global standards, and also be the best for the Indian market,” she said.

Panelists agreed that entrepreneurship tends to go above the man-woman divide. For example, Dr. Priyanka Mokshmar, Chairman and MD, Vaayu Home Appliances said it had been a “great journey” till now. Vaayu is India’s First Patented Innovative Smart Coolers that fills the gap between traditional coolers and AC's. “I lead a manufacturing company which manufactures innovative technology that is going to even replace air conditioners from the world. I started in 2015 and today we are a large company manufacturing from Indore,” she said.

Shweta Sharma, Founder & Director, TedShark Labs talked about creating awareness about cyber-security to one and all. “My company is a cyber-security company which provides all generation’s awareness about cyber related threats and how we can protect ourselves,” she said.

However, bringing back the spotlight on the challenges of women entrepreneurs, especially in the technology space, Sukirti Gupta, Co-Founder, Sipping Thoughts pointed out that Since its inception, Sipping Thoughts has been working across platforms to create awareness of women centric issues. Sipping Thoughts, Gupta said, is a digital media brand which focuses on women centric programming and reaches to over 1M women monthly. “We are creating a platform for women. I have seen all the big companies and corporates and startups, so I decided to create a startup of my own,” she said.

The discussion raised an important question: Why was there a women’s entrepreneurship summit when there are no men’s entrepreneurship summit ever? The participants felt that there remains a slight divide which has to be completely bridged for all to celebrate entrepreneurship that is gender-neutral.