The U.S. government exchange program Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) is helping business women in India become more competitive, helping them get access to the capital they need to expand their businesses. AWE launched in India in 2020 and is implemented by U.S. Consulates in multiple cities as a three-month business skills and empowerment program for women entrepreneurs.
Last year, the Indian state of Bihar launched a startup policy that would award a seed fund of 10 lakhs — the equivalent of about $14,000 — to selected entrepreneurs in the state to help them get their new businesses off the ground. The state received more than 10,000 applications for funding and ultimately chose 33. Of the businesses that were selected to receive awards, only seven had women CEOs — and five are run by AWE alumni.
Bihar has been one of the poorest states in India for decades. There is also a pervasive gender gap, with women at a comparative disadvantage. For instance, the literacy rate for women is about 20% lower than the male literacy rate while female employment rates in Bihar are among the lowest in India — 6.4% and 3.9% of women are employed in urban and rural areas, respectively.
But Aastha Singh, Sadhana Jha, Rashmi Rani, Sonal Patel, and Mamata Bharti are not only all working, they run their own businesses in various industries from agriculture to art. These five women all won seed funding from the government for their businesses. All of them completed the AWE program together in 2022.
Though the women live all across the state of Bihar, they are united by one mission: to make their communities more equitable. Here are their stories.
Take Patel for instance, who is working to revolutionize the experience of more than 23 million people who travel across the Asian continent by train on Indian railways every day by treating them to a good meal.
Patel knows that a trip from Mumbai, her hometown on India’s west coast, to the eastern city of Kolkata can take well over a day by train, but she said there’s a lack of good quality food to energize passengers during the journey.
“When people travel, the journey can be over 24 hours in which they would need breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Patel said. “There is a huge demand for food on the train while people travel from one corner of the country to another.”
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| Sonal Patel won a competition that awarded USD $14,000 in seed funding from the Indian government for her business Rail Foodies, which delivers meals to passengers on Indian Railways trains. |
That’s why Patel co-founded Rail Foodies, a food delivery service currently located at 200 train stations in India. Customers can order meals online or through the Rail Foodies app by entering their travel details and Rail Foodies staff will deliver the food right to their train seat when the train stops at one of the participating stations.
Patel plans to use the new seed funding to continue to improve and develop her website and to set up a call center so that customers can receive support over the phone. She said winning the grant has made her especially thankful for the mentorship and training she received from the AWE program, which inspired her to be confident that her business would be a success.
“I started believing in my business and I knew I could make the Bihar government believe in my dream, too,” Patel said. “The confidence has come because of the training that I have received.”
Aastha Singh: A virtual network for Indian farmers is now a click away
Singh, another one of the AWE alumni who was selected to receive a seed fund, agreed that AWE was a pivotal part of her entrepreneurial journey. Singh started Gramshree Agri Services in 2019. Her business seeks to build a virtual network for Indian farmers to buy and sell livestock and equipment, all at the tap of a button. Her Gramshree app has more than 6,000 farmer-members who can also sign up for online training and consulting so that they can learn how to expand their businesses.
Singh said completing the DreamBuilder online learning platform — which was designed by Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management using a cutting-edge U.S. business curriculum — sharpened her entrepreneurial skills. On a more personal level, however, Singh said going through the AWE program alongside so many other driven women helped inspire her passion for entrepreneurship and made her feel less alone on her journey.
“Being a woman entrepreneur is tough because of all the challenges women are facing and the work-life balance we have to maintain,” Singh said. “So, all the women entrepreneurs coming together on the same platform and sharing experiences made me feel like I’m not the only one who is doing it.”
Sadhana Jha: Robot teachers? Not quite, but students are learning engineering through 3-D printed models
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| Sadhana Jha has created a robotics and AI curriculum for students in India. She is an alumni of the AWE program and a recipient of a Bihar startup funding award. |
A third winner, Sadhana Jha, is the founder of Ankuram Robo, an educational company that offers virtual or in-person lessons in the field of robotics or artificial intelligence to Indian students from age 6 to 16. Students are provided with 3-D printed kits and learn how to assemble various simple robots. Jha said she will be using the seed fund from the government to purchase more 3-D printers so that they can produce more kits and offer more classes to reach more students.
AWE helped Jha figure out the best way to promote her business to potential investors and customers, she said. Without AWE, she said she doesn’t know if she would have had the confidence in public speaking to make a successful pitch to the Bihar government and go on to win the seed funding.
“AWE was a great platform for us because before that we were hesitant to present our pitch deck and now we are feeling amazing,” Jha said. “We have learned many things like how we can develop our business and how we can motivate ourselves.”
Rashmi Rani: If the shoe fits… and these custom ones always do!
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| AWE alumni Rashmi Rani received seed funding for her custom footwear business Dhajcraft. |
Rashmi Rani’s designer footwear business, Dhajcraft, offers customers everything from ballet shoes to sneakers adorned with embroidery and hand-painted designs at an affordable price point. In a press release announcing that Dhajcraft had been selected for government funding, Rani thanked AWE for supporting her through mentorship and training.
“In the world of unknowns, it always feels good to be recognized in your home,” Rani wrote.
Mamata Bharti: Sarees and scarves that are a blast from the past
AWE alumni Bharti also won a grant to support her custom textile business Hast Sanskrti, which features traditional Madhubani Painting — an artform that originated in Bihar over 2500 years ago — on silk scarves, sarees, and other clothing items. In a press release celebrating the seed fund award, Bharti also acknowledged the transformative power of the AWE program, which helped her leverage technology to launch a website and reach more customers all over India.
“I am extremely humble and grateful,” Bharti wrote. “I was [aware] about how AWE and [the] DreamBuilder program would transform my life.”
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| Mamata Bharti started Hast Sanskrti to promote the use of traditional Madhubani Painting on clothes. She received funding from the Bihar government to expand her business. |
The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs operates under the U.S. Department of State and helps women like Singh, Jha, Rani, Patel and Bharti build their business acumen and have the knowledge, networks and access to launch and grow their own businesses. Thanks to a partnership with Arizona State University and the Freeport-McMoRan Foundation, AWE currently offers programs in nearly 100 countries and has empowered roughly 25,000 women worldwide. Since AWE started operating in India in 2020, AWE has helped more than 500 women entrepreneurs realize their business dreams in cities and villages surrounding Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi.
Article Credits: ECA