WeHub incubates 3,194 women-led startups, SMEs over last 5 years
on the lines of TS-iPass, the new single window will be active in the next one month; it will guide, support and connect women entrepreneurs to the market
image for illustrative purpose
Hyderabad: On International Women's Day, WeHub, a State-led incubation centre for women entrepreneurs, celebrated its fifth anniversary by recognising the achievements of women entrepreneurs and honouring their contributions to the economy. Over the past five years, WeHub has incubated 3,194 startups and SMEs by women founders and successfully engaged with over 5,000 women entrepreneurs, 1,247 students, 986 social impact entrepreneurs and 609 urban entrepreneurs.
On the occasion, Telangana IT & Industries Minister K T Rama Rao said, “Integrating grass root level self help group’s into the mainstream is the State government’s mission. For the creation of wealth and generation of employment, we need to support women entrepreneurs beyond tech startups. To create a bigger market for women from tier-2, tier-3 cities and villages, the government is working on a single window.”
Explaining further about the platform, Principal Secretary to the Government of Telangana, IT department, Jayesh Ranjan said that the single window will take care of the different requirements that women entrepreneurs have. “It does not matter at what level of growth the entrepreneur is. The government through the single window will provide ‘guidance, support, assistance and connect’ so that the entrepreneurs concern is addressed. For funding, we will connect them with the banks present near them, for visibility – we will connect them to a branding service provider.”
“Action will happen in terms of clearing the blockage the entrepreneur is facing. If a sample is ready and the entrepreneur does not know how to take it forward then the single window will ensure the product sample is taken to 20 prospective buyers. Hence, the single window will find a solution for all hurdles that a women entrepreneur could encounter,” he added.
On a query about future collaborations between the government and women-led startups, the Principal Secretary said that according to the State’s startup policy the government will be the first buyer if a product or service is relevant to the government. “In the last eight years from the time the policy was implemented more than 50 startups have been supported. Many of the startups present in the market function on B2B model. But, technology related solutions such as blockchain or artificial intelligence solutions integrated into the government platform/verticals are sourced from local startups.”
The CEO of WeHub, Deepthi Ravula sharing her experience of working with the incubation centre for five years said that the outreach initiative of WeHub to onboard women entrepreneurs from beyond Hyderabad has led many rural enterprises finding a bigger market. “Through We Hub, we have travelled 84,000 km in Telangana and interacted with 35,000 women entrepreneurs in these five years, for opening new opportunities for them. Our aim at We Hub has been to work and talk beyond stereotypical business models such as ‘papad, pickles and pad.”
Integrating grass root level self help group’s into the mainstream is the State government’s mission. For the creation of wealth and generation of employment, we need to support women entrepreneurs beyond tech startups
- K T Rama Rao, IT Minister, Telangana
