Niti Aayog, Cisco launch next phase of Women Entrepreneurship Platform
- ByAyushi Ray | August 27, 2021
Niti Aayog, Cisco launch next phase of Women Entrepreneurship Platform, which has been named ‘WEP Nxt’ and it would enable more women-owned businesses across the country. The WEP is the first of its kind, which brings forth an unified access portal which women from different parts of India can access to realise their entrepreneurial aspirations. Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant spoke on this and said that as per the Sixth Economic Census, women only constitute 13.76 percent of the total entrepreneurs — 8.05 million out of the 58.5 million entrepreneurs in the country. “WEP Nxt will further catalyse the women entrepreneur movement, and I am confident with Cisco as our partner. This technology platform will soon be the personalised guide for every woman entrepreneur in the country to realise her dreams,” Kant added. Cisco Chief Operating Officer Maria Martinez said, “We are excited about our partnership with the Niti Aayog and hope to bring the benefits of digital technologies to more women-owned enterprises.”
WEP was initially launched by the Niti Aayog in 2017, offering women access to a multitude of resources, support, and learning. Encouraging women entrepreneurship can lead to the creation of 30 million women-owned enterprises in India and potentially transform employment in the country with 150-170 million new jobs, according to a report by Google and Bain & Company released in February 2020. In fact, Ratna Mehta, Executive Vice President at Wadhwani Foundation, who also heads the Wadhwani Catalyst Fund, said that the new-age women entrepreneurs in the last two decades are driving innovation in fashion, retail, personal care, education, and women and child-focused products and services.
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