CII CIES to launch initiative to celebrate 100 women entrepreneurs with innovative businesses

CII Centre for Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Startups (CII-CIES) has announced an initiative to recognise women founders/co-founders who are accelerating innovation, change, and championing collective impact with the aid of technology.

“The aim is to acknowledge and celebrate 100 women founders/co-founders with innovative businesses across India through a compendium, showcase their pioneering businesses extensively both in India and internationally, roll out a series of fireside chats by the selected women startups to share their exciting, innovative ideas and ambitious plans that will inspire others and more,” Varun Akhnoor, Director, CII Centre of Excellence for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startups told HerStory.

The initiative will include a compendium to showcase these pioneering businesses extensively in India and abroad and a series of fireside chats with founders of selected women startups who will share their exciting, innovative ideas and ambitious plans.

“With PwC as its knowledge partner, this Women in Innovation initiative hopes to attract growth-stage startups that are in business for three years and more. We are inviting startups who are earning revenues, have paid customers, and are product ready,” he added.

The compendium will be launched at an event on March 16, which will also mark the inauguration of the CII-CIES’s new office in Hyderabad. The event will be attended by past women presidents like Shobana Kamineni, Anushree Ram, and Suchitra Ella–all renowned women entrepreneurs.

Market access forms the core of this programme, providing women entrepreneurs with a corporate connect, mentorship, awareness, and access to funds and resources.

Varun explains, “Once the applications are screened and selections are made by a panel of women industry leaders along with PwC, we offer engagement in a hybrid format for six to eight months. Our core strength is market access. We have over 9,000 corporate entities as partners, and our current programmes also focus on providing this to growth-stage startups. We have onboarded six corporates in the last four months.”

Different modes of engagement

The programme offers three models of engagement. One, CII-CIES identifies the needs of the corporate in terms of innovation. Secondly, if there is a particular solution the corporate is looking for with a startup, and thirdly, a corporate can purely invest in a startup from a strategic viewpoint.

He elaborates, “For example, if a woman entrepreneur wants to get connected to a Tata company, Infosys, or Wipro to supply technology, we facilitate those connects. It’s not just a handshake. We identify needs from both sides by working with corporates as well.”

Since the startups selected will be in their growth stage, Varun believes there will not be a need for too many interventions.

“We are confident that a majority of the startups know what they are doing, but if we can support them in case they want to tweak their offering or prepare a business plan deck, or something as simple as how to pitch to a corporate,” he adds.

They are also looking at exclusive pitching sessions between startups and corporates like the CII-CIES’ ICONN programme currently in place. If a corporate finds a startup solution useful, it can engage further.

Last year, the organisation organised a Women in Stem compendium in collaboration with Infosys, where it identified 50 women in the sector. In 2013, CII launched the Indian Women Network (IWN)–with the vision of becoming the largest network for career women.

The thought behind the formation of IWN was that career women require a structured network to meet like-minded women to discuss and overcome challenges they might be facing at the workplace. IWN works towards enabling women to become better professionals and achievers in their respective fields through initiatives and activities.

Women entrepreneurs can apply to the Women in Innovation programme here. The key criteria include–tech-enabled startups, women holding at least 51% stake in the company, having at least one paying customer, is at an early growth stage with a minimum of five years in business.