CHENNAI: The wide, open-spaced atrium at Spencer Plaza was abuzz with activity on an otherwise regular Sunday evening. An indoor badminton tournament was in full pace, with women and girls of extraordinary skill competing for the title. On the other side of the arena, women were setting up their work for the cookery contest. Amid such frenzy, 20 female entrepreneurs were presenting their Covid journey to the audience. All these women were later crowned with the Singepenne Award, thanks to the initiative by IRIS Glam’s Latha Krishnan.
The idea is to celebrate the women who managed to thrive amid such adversity, it seems. “There are two types of awards here. One is for people (women) who have started their business during the pandemic — Innova-preneur Award. The other one is people who have been sustaining their ventures during Covid, supporting their families even while their husbands lost their jobs and such — Synergy Award,” explains Latha.
As much as the award is a token of encouragement and motivation, Latha plans to do much more with it. “The vision is Mission 100. I’ve completed 25 years as an entrepreneur. By the year 2025, I want to create 100 new entrepreneurs, give them marketing ideas, and also bring in investors to invest in their venture,” she reveals.
This award exercise is the first step in that journey. The awardees were selected from a set of over 75 applications/nominations, based on their business idea, knowledge, interest and several other factors. Their businesses covered many sectors from education, human resources and manufacturing to food and fashion.
“Many budding entrepreneurs are struggling; they don’t know how to market themselves or have financial problems. We are looking to iron out these problems and find them investors. That’s the idea,” she explains.
This just turned out to be a fitting tribute for Women’s Day too. On that note, IRIS Glam’s own models concluded the event with a fashion show themed around the song Veera Penne, another IRIS Glam product (conceptualised and released by Nawaz of Tubelight Productions).
While Chef Jeseu from Hotel Savera and Arusuvai Revathi judged the cooking contest, chief guests — Neelima Esai, actor, and Ishari K Ganesh, chancellor of Vels University — felicitated the entrepreneurs with the Singapenne Awards.