Niti Aayog launches platform for women to build their enterprises

Government think-tank Niti Aayog today launched a dedicated platform to promote women entrepreneurs build on their businesses successfully.
The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) is aimed at building an ecosystem for women across India to realise their entrepreneurial aspirations, scale up innovative initiatives and chalk out sustainable, long-term strategies for their business, Niti Aayog said in a statement to mark the International Women's Day today.
Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant launched WEP in the presence of UN Resident Coordinator in India Yuri Afanasiev, singer Kailash Kher, among others.
The WEP theme song "Nari Shakti" composed and sung by Kher was also released on the occassion.

Kant and Afanasiev also opened the nominations for the Women Transforming India Awards, 2018.
WEP, envisaged last year by Kant, enables women entrepreneurs build up industry networking, partnerships, seek mentor support and also forge peer-to-peer connect.

The platform aspires to substantially increase the number of women entrepreneurs who will create and empower a dynamic new India, Niti Aayog said.
WEP is manifested on three pillars, namely, Ichha Shakti--motivating aspiring entrepreneurs to start their enterprise, Gyaan Shakti--providing knowledge and ecosystem support to women entrepreneurs to help them foster entrepreneurship and Karma Shakti --providing hands-on support to entrepreneurs in setting-up and scaling up businesses.

Niti Aayog said WEP will address the bottlenecks faced by both aspiring and established women entrepreneurs by streamlining information across government and private sector schemes and initiatives.
The platform will provide credit evaluation of women-led startups by Crisil and potential equity investments through Rs 10 crore fund established by DICE Districts.
The other partner commitments include ShopClues.com, which has offered to provide internship and dedicated mentorship and Mann Deshi Foundation to provide digital and financial literacy to aspiring women entrepreneurs.
Several other leading corporates and industry bodies viz. Nasscom, CII, Ficci, Sidbi and Facebook have partnered with WEP to provide business acceleration, mentorship and other start-up support for women entrepreneurs.