Women Entrepreneurship Platform

The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) is a NITI Aayog initiative that seeks to bring together women from various parts of the country through a unified access portal to help them in realizing their entrepreneurial aspirations. In this article, we look at the Women Entrepreneurship platform in detail.

Objectives

The platform has been created with the ideology of “Women First, Prosperity for All”. The following are its objectives:

Promotion of women entrepreneurship in the country by empowering them through financial aid and mentoring. Through these measures, the scheme is expected to bring more women into the business fold, which would provide them with more job opportunities and a safe environment.
Creation of a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem with network industry collaborations, partnerships and mentors.
Scaling-up the initiatives of women entrepreneurs by chalking-out sustainable, long-term strategies for their businesses.
Curbing the bottlenecks faced by both aspiring and established women entrepreneurs by streamlining information across various government and private-sector schemes.

Gamut of Services

The platform works on the basis of the following principles:

Icca Shakthi – to motivate aspiring entrepreneurs in pursuing their own businesses.
Gyaan Shakthi – to provide knowledge and ecosystem support to women entrepreneurs so as to assist them in fostering their businesses.
Karma Shakthi – to support women entrepreneurs in the establishment and development of their businesses.

Apart from this, the platform renders the following services:

Financial aid – the scope of monetary assistance includes seed capital, growth capital, line of credit and non-credit support.
Promotion of offline initiatives and outreach programs so as to propel the spirit of entrepreneurship among potential women entrepreneurs. This will be conducted by partnering with other organizations.
Incubation and acceleration support to startups founded or co-founded by women entrepreneurs who are registered with the program.
Identification of skill-gaps faced by entrepreneurs so as to link such entrepreneurs with partners who provide online/offline training on these aspects.
Marketing and networking support to early-stage or established entities to help them in improving the marketing and positioning of their products.
Compliance services to registered users, which provides them with the essential tools to adhere to legal compliances, perform registrations, furnish accounts, make loan applications, provide license counselling, and so and so forth.
A host of specialized services to social entrepreneurship ventures founded/co-founded by women. It is rendered by understanding their specific needs.
Last but not the least, women entrepreneurs are encouraged to share their entrepreneurial journeys, stories and experiences to create a culture of mutual learning.

Associated Partners

The following partners are associated with this program:

SIDBI
CRISIL
Mann Deshi Foundation
WEE Foundation
Dice Districts
Facebook India
NASSCOM
ICAI
Digital Leadership Institute
com
United Nations
FiCCI
CCI
Gen India
Content Pixies
Finsafe India
Lee Keshav
ALC India
Coworkln

Can I be a Partner?

The program welcomes corporate entities, research organizations, incubator/accelerators or successful startups to be associated with it if it can render tangible support and expertise. Further details can be found on its website.

Merits of the Initiative

Women entrepreneurs are assured of the following benefits upon enrolling into the platform:

Validation and assessment of business ideas.
Monetary and legal assistance
Mentoring
Global market access
Quick and easy company registration
Self-certification and compliance
Tax exemption (for the initial three years)

Registration Procedure

Candidates who wish to be a part of this initiative may pursue their registration through the website meant for this purpose by providing the essential details in the concerned registration page. The link to the registration page can be found in the home page of the portal.

Company Registration

OPC Registration