The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Making real entrepreneurs out of women

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 10, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Making real entrepreneurs out of women

Staff Reporter

MPWE gives them training on topics ranging from accounting to negotiation

MPWE is Management Programme for Women Entrepreneurs
The month-long programme helps them launch new ventures

Bangalore: Every summer, women, either bored with their jobs, looking to pursue a business of their own or hoping to upscale their businesses, gather at the Indian Institute of Management (IIMB), Bangalore.

The arena is set. The women enter the Management Programme for Women Entrepreneurs (MPWE), run by Ganesh N. Prabhu, armed with a business plan and go through the month-long programme that gives them entrepreneurial-related training which includes a variety of topics, from accounting to negotiation.

The women come out of the programme and almost immediately launch their new ventures or infuse their existing ventures with the knowledge they have gained from the MPWE. Some women have come up with unique ideas, and have grit their teeth to make them work.

Take for instance, Mukta. S. Darera whose venture seems like it is out of a reality show. Her website, www.ireboot.com, is a portal to the dream job you never had. “It is like test driving your dream job for two days,” says Ms. Darera, who passed out of the MPWE in May.

People who feel trapped in their jobs can write to her through the website, and she will bring them to their “mentors” — people who are actively pursuing the sought-after dream jobs — and they, in turn, will take ireboot’s customers under their wing for one to three days. They can then decide if they want to pursue the job.

Ms. Darera, who herself quit her job with a software company, came to MPWE looking for a concrete way to start this unusual business. “We will be counselling these people’s passions. Eventually, we would like to do the same for students of 10th and 12th standards, so that they can make informed choices about their careers,” says the 23-year-old entrepreneur.

Right now, her clientele is her peer group, but she is hoping that the idea will be a lucrative one. The MPWE, she says, has given her the confidence and the network to take on something like this.

Confidence and network seem to be what these women have taken away from the programme. Usha Satish reiterates it. Thirty-six and a student of MPWE 2008, she runs Srianvi, a store for soft-furnishing items such as blinds, duvets and cushion-covers made out of natural fibres, whether they are banana or bamboo fibres.

“I like to think of Srianvi as one-stop-shop for organic living,” she says. Her eco-friendly furnishing line will soon grow into an eco-friendly apparel line. Tired of all the talk about not using plastic and pesticides, she decided to integrate them into her business, and sees a notable difference after MPWE. “Concepts of accounting and materialising my dream, apart from confidence, have been the highlights of my programme,” she adds. Srianvi, at Sadashivnagar, has been there for the past five years. However, according to Ms. Satish, it has enhanced itself after the programme.

Gifting ideas

Jyoti Ramnath (27) with her creative gift e-commerce company, www.craftmygift.com, will be doing a course at the Nadathur S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneur Learning (NSRCEL) for the next six months. She offers her customers personalised gifts, which include a six-page personal magazine that can be designed within three days of the order.

From the person’s childhood photos to little bits of information about him, the magazine can be customised in whichever way the person wants. Invitation cards in the form of newspapers to every other kind of concept gifting are available to the customer.

Working with four or five freelancers, Ms. Ramnath is happy with her MPWE experience. “The interaction with the group has been great. From women who are 60 to those right out of college, it has been fruitful being with each one of them. The case studies have been especially helpful,” she says.

“The mix of those women in business and those who want to begin an enterprise or are not sure proves valuable to us, because the existing entrepreneurs work as a reference point for the others. The students even develop buyer-seller relationships among each other,” says Mr. Prabhu.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka