Bhubaneswar: A workshop on “Women led Startups – Challenges & Opportunities” was held today with more than 100 founders/co-founders of women led startups and entrepreneurs’ participation. The workshop was inaugurated by Minister, MSME, W&CD, SSEPD Shri Prafulla Samal.
In his inaugural address, Shri Samal stated that in a short span of last 18 months, 310 startups and 09 incubators are registered with the Startup Odisha Initiative over 100 startups are led by women entrepreneurs. He added that Odisha is fast emerging as leading startup state with the pro-active startup ecosystem and big push from the government. He added that we are firmly on our way to achieve the vision of supporting 1000-startups by 2020.
On this occasion, Shri L.N. Gupta, ACS, MSME stated that out of the 40 startups assisted with 52 grants by the state government, 15 are led /founded by women
entrepreneurs. He added that with the amendment in the Odisha Startup Policy carried out in March, 2018, the state has a vision to tap the potential of women entrepreneurship by encouraging at least 33% of startups with founder/co-founder as women. With the startup friendly policy, highest monetary assistance and reasonably good startup ecosystem, the number of startups is growing at a pace, which is faster than the national average.
On this occasion, the founders of some of the women led startups Ms. Ambika Satpathy – Zoo Fresh, Ms. Megha Aggarwal – Kalaghar, Ms. Sumona Karjee – Prante, Ms.
Palak Aggarwal – Battighar, Ms. Leena Dutta – Bestray, Ms. Priyanka Padhi, Influidity shared their entrepreneurial journey and success stories, which were quite impressive and motivational. Ms. Minati Singha from TOI Bhubaneswar and Ms. Sanjukta Badhai from KIIT TBI shared their prospective of women entrepreneurship in the state.
On this occasion, Smt. Anu Garg, Principal Secretary, W&CD stated that there are large areas of convergence between the grassroot women entrepreneurs and women led
Startups. She highlighted many programs and schemes for women entrepreneurs by the State Government. Smt. Sujata Karthikeyan, Commissioner cum Director Mission Shakti
also highly appreciated the women led Startups and expressed her desire to help them move to the next steps.
Speaking at the event, Smt. Praveen Kala , Chief General Manager of SBI highlighted various schemes for women entrepreneur by the State bank of India and encourage
women entrepreneur to apply for loans to take their business forward. Mrs. Jayashree Mohanty, president Luminous Infoways, a successful local entrepreneur
shared the story of her journey while Mr. Samarendra Sahu, CEO, IED gave welcome remarks. Vote of thanks was delivered by Shri Prasanta Biswal, Evangelist, Startup Odisha.
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