KOCHI: As the city is all set to host the Woman Entrepreneur summit in November, entrepreneurship among women gets a big boost at Startup Village. In a land mark initiative, Google’s Developer Group has come together with Startup Village to launch ‘Women Techmakers’ (WTM), a global programme and brand for women in technology. MLAs Hibi Eden, K S Sabarinath and Shafi Parambil jointly inaugurated the programme at the Startup Village in Kochi. Women Techmakers aim at building a platform for young women entrepreneurs where they can connect, be inspired and encourage each other.
WTM will help the aspiring women IT entrepreneurs to be part of a supportive community and associate with the like-minded people, leaders and mentors. It will also facilitate the women entrepreneurs to join various technology events like code-labs and hackathons. WTM Cochin is led by its community managers AryaMurali and Sanjay Nediyara.
“A wide gap exists between people who use technology and who do not. We should ensure that the development in technology reaches evenly to all people and they reap benefit out of it,” said Sabarinath MLA.
“Women play an important role in society and we need to ensure more women taking up entrepreneurship by transforming their ideas into business ventures. WTM will evolve as a perfect platform for women to embrace technology to achieve their aspirations,” said Shafi Parambil while inaugurating the programme.
Speaking on the occasion Hibi Eden said that platforms like WTM will definitely help young women to join a global community where they can learn and exchange ideas.
Startup Village Chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Pranav Kumar Suresh also spoke at the function.
At Startup Village around 250 of the 533 startups have woman cofounders. Furthermore, of the 2,889 people employed by these firms, 590 are women. Also, a Women’s Entrepreneurship Cell is functioning at the Startup Village to encourage more women into the business world. Startup Village officials said now they are receiving more applications from women - majority from the IT and ITeS sector - to start their own companies.