As said by the first prime minister of our nation Jawaharlal Nehru, "You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women". Women occupy an important and vital place in our society. Their role in shaping the family and society can not be ignored. The growth, prosperity, and development of a nation depends on the status and development of its women as they constitute half of its population and also influence the growth and development of the remaining half.
NITI Aayog, the think tank of Indian government has launched the 4th edition of Women Transforming India (WTI) Awards (2019) in association with the United Nations in New Delhi. The Women Transforming India awards are being organised in collaboration with the UN to recognise & felicitate the women entrepreneurs from across India. This year the theme of the programme is Women & Entrepreneurship, in continuation of the theme of WTI Awards 2018. Whatsapp has also collaborated with Niti Aayog in this programme and will be providing support amounting to the US$ 100,000 to the award winners. In this article, we are going to cover everything that you need to know about it.
What are these Woman Transforming India Awards?
WTI Awards were launched by NITI Aayog and the UN in India in 2016, honour and appreciate the women entrepreneurs of India. This programme has been organised annually by NITI Aayog in collaboration with the United Nations to recognise women entrepreneurs within India. It has been launched under Women Entrepreneurship Platform and from its inception, it aims to felicitate and celebrate the stories of exemplary women entrepreneurs who are breaking the glass ceiling and challenging the entire stereotype, through business and enterprises and are providing innovation developmental solutions to building the new India.
Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP)
This is an initiative by NITI Aayog to promote and support the aspiring as well as established women entrepreneurs in India. It helps them in their journey from starting to scale up and enlarge their ventures.
The objective of this programme are
- To transform and develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem for women entrepreneurs of India.
- To become a one-stop resource center for all women entrepreneur of the country.
- To provide a single platform for meeting and working with various stakeholders in the entrepreneurial circle.
Achieving gender equality and complete empowerment of all women and girls rests upon unlocking the full potential of women. Women transforming India builds/constructed on the government of India's commitment to advance gender equality, the government of India already has taken many steps for ensuring gender equality within the society which includes Beti Bachao Beti Padho, Surakshya Yojana and many more.
Eligibility criteria
- Participants must be citizens of India and must be at least 18 years old as on 1st January 2018.
- This is an individual participation contest and team or group entries would not be allowed.
- Applications will be accepted through a form hosted online on NITI Aayog's Women's Entrepreneurship cell platform and the Facebook page of Women Transforming India.
- The application can be submitted by women who are the agents of change or by those who are personally or professionally associated with the change-makers and the application must clarify who among the two is submitting.
- In the latter case, full contact details including address and phone number of the women leading the initiative programme must be provided.
- Government of India will have the copyright on all the application submitted while applying the participants or the agents agrees to transfer the intellectual property right to the government of India. GOI also reserves the right to reject any application or entry based on discretion.
- Participants must not present any false information in the registration process & they must keep their contact information up-to-date.
- Government of India reserves the right to cancel or change all or any part of the competition or the rule without notice for any event that is within the control of Government of India. It also accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss or injury of any kind suffered by any participant in entering the competition.
- The participants will comply with all applicable Indian laws.
- The government of India is not responsible if the participant is not able to apply on the portal before the last date and the time of submission for any reason.
- All prizes are non-transferable.
The applications for the WTI Awards are now live, and nominations can be filed on behalf of the participant or by the participant at https://wep.gov.in.
Other Features of the Programme
Currently, the platform has more than 5000 women entrepreneurs register under this programme, more than 30 partners and it has committed funding of more than $10 million for these startups. United nation India business forum, Goggle, SIDBI, NASSCOM, NIC, CRISIL, SEWA Bank, WEE Foundation, Manndesi foundation, etc, are the partners in this programme.
The previous two editions of the WTI Awards felicitated 12 extraordinary stories of each of women undertaking exceptional work to transform the Indian society, cities, villages, and towns. Along with this they also empowered themselves and contributed to empowering their community also.
On 9th August, this programme is launched with the presence of Amitabh Kant, CEO NITI Aayog, UN Coordinator in India, Renata Lok Dessallien and partners of Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) including Whatsapp and Atal Innovation Mission. It will recognise women who are the pioneer of innovation and are breaking the glass ceiling to create change and transform India.
The CEO of NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant said that he believes that the country can't grow at a 9-10% if half of the population is not in the workforce. He highlighted that wherever NITI Aayog has given chances to women, they have performed better than men. The Women Entrepreneurship Platform aims to support as well as promote the aspiring and established women entrepreneurs of India, assist and help them in their journey from starting to set up their organisation and also for expanding their venture.
The initiative comes on the heels of the government's continued efforts to support women entrepreneurship and provide better opportunities for them to grow and expand their business with access to infrastructure, capital as well as mentorship.
Conclusion
As India continues to aim to grow the startup ecosystem within the country, the promotion of women entrepreneurs continues to be an important pillar for the future developments of our nation.
Hey. I am Namrata Priyadarshini. I did my Post Graduation in Political Science from Utkal University, odisha. The motive of my life is to contribute towards the growth and development of the society.I love to write about social issues.
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