Adviser to the U.S. President Ivanka Trump underscored the importance of education and technology for women entrepreneurs to make a mark in their chosen field.
Participating in a panel discussion on ‘Be the Change: Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership’ after the inauguration of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit-2017 here on Tuesday, Ms. Trump said technology was disrupting every sphere of life. It was important to train women in digital literacy, computer science and give them access to skill-training.
Citing the U.S. scenario, she said women comprised only 47% of the workforce, but only 21% of them were in the IT field.
The U.S. President pumped in funds to bring focus on skill-training for women and give opportunity to every American woman to participate in the economy and re-enter the workforce and become well-versed with the digital technology, she said.
John Chambers, Chairman Emeritus, Cisco, moderated the panel session which was attended by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, Sibongile Sambo, Managing Director, SRS Aviation and SRS Petroleum from South Africa and Arcus Wallenberg, Chairman of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) besides Ms. Trump.
All the panellists were unanimous in that the entrepreneurs, significant number of them being women, were revolutionising economies, more so in the U.S. and India.
Ms. Trump said she was quite optimistic that entrepreneurship would fuel growth in the coming years. Important to note, she said, was that even as many entrepreneurs failed, they had shown the grit and perseverance to stage a comeback.
Appreciating the diverse representation of entrepreneurs at the GES with more than 50% being women, Ms. Trump said networking and mentorship were more valuable for entrepreneurs. Each entrepreneur should make it a goal to at least help one more woman in their communities become an entrepreneur.
Earlier, Ms. Trump said after her father’s election, she saw an opportunity to work for empowering all Americans, including women. Closing the gender entrepreneurship gap worldwide could raise global GDP by two %, she said.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, elaborating the priority being given to encourage start-ups and women entrepreneurs, said push should also come from women themselves. Women’s skills were underestimated by women themselves. Environment in the country today was conducive to promote women entrepreneurship through access to funding, mentoring and skill-training.
She said the start-up concept was gaining momentum as it was not possible for the government to generate as many jobs as people wanted. Thus, focus was to provide skill sets to people.
Defence sector
Ms. Nirmala said they had left it to entrepreneurs themselves to come up with solutions rather than imposing from the top. An important decision would be to provide level-playing field to start-ups with women entrepreneurs. A meeting would be convened with the industry leaders and Chambers of Commerce on December 4 to give an opportunity to start-ups in the defence sector.
The Defence Minister said as directed by the Prime Minister, efforts were on to encourage women in every district across the country to establish start-ups. Start- ups should not be confined to metros alone, she said.
Women who set up small and micro enterprises would be helped to explore global markets for their products with the help of a U.N. organisation, she said.
