Facebook Backs Women Entrepreneurship in India

Many colleges and tech giants are turning into career makers through their innovation hubs and encouraging more women and youngsters to come up with their own startups.

The startup system in India is witnessing a revolution, where big players are trying to penetrate into smaller markets and generating opportunities for the small players through various programs and modules.

Now Facebook has joined the league, where it plans to expand its SheLeadsTech, Innovation Hub and Developer Circle programs, to tier-II cities like Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati and Shillong to help women entrepreneurs in giving their ideas shape of a startup.

Generating Army of Womenpreneurs

Facebook is supporting over 170 women entrepreneurs in 24 cities by providing them with proper training, helping them with the usage of tools, how to identify communities and to gather resources for their startups.

Facebook is also supporting startups which are in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), and for this, it has collaborated with co-working spaces in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore to set up Innovation Hubs.

Satyajeet Singh, Head of Platform Partnerships, Facebook India, said, "We believe when startups flourish, India will prosper. At Facebook we are committed to paving the way for the success of the new generation of startups in India and understand that access to resources, people and networks can be a powerful catalyst for their growth. That’s why we are creating programs that can fuel startups to build businesses of tomorrow through mentoring, regular training, workshops and meetups.”

Future Expansion Plans

The company is said to be launching three innovation hubs for AR and VR technologies. Right now it is working to provide a platform to developers, through its initiative named “Developer Circles”.

By June 2019, it plans to expand to 100,000 developers in 20cities from 50,000 members in 15 cities, which they have now.

Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog said that “Regulation will always be far behind innovation. It is very important for policymakers to really draft regulatory regimes which keep abreast of all the innovations that happen in the society.”