TiECON Pune to focus on women entrepreneurship this year
Pune, April 7: TiECON Pune 2017, the flagship event of TiE Pune Chapter on entrepreneurship development will be held at the Westin on April 14th and 15th and will have “Inflection Point” as its key theme. “The country is at an Inflection Point where everything is set to change. Demonetization and Aadhar have impacted both India and Bharat creating new opportunities everywhere. Indian startups have changed the face of the Indian IT industry. Make in India and Smart Cities are set to change how we live. TiECON Pune 2017 focuses on these changes and what it means to us”, said Kiran Deshpande, President TiE Pune.
TiECON Pune will also have ‘Women Entrepreneurship’ as a special theme of this year. This was announced by Kiran Deshpande, co-chair TiECON during a Press Conference held in the city today. Vishwas Mahajan, Global Trustee, TiE and Ajay Hiraskar, Vandana Saxena and Gaurav Mehra, co-chairs of TiECON alongwith other members of TiE were also present on the occasion.
“For the first time, TiECON Pune will feature An Exclusive Women’s Track. As a part of TiECON Pune, this year there is a dedicated track for women entrepreneurs and soon-to-be entrepreneurs. These special sessions for women would be ideal for women who are running their businesses for the past 2-3 years and are now looking at expanding their businesses, women entrepreneurs having a turnover of less than 1 Cr, women who are working / entrapreneurs and are thinking of new ideas and experienced women entrepreneurs who can support others”, informed Kiran Deshpande. Co-chair Vandana Saxena explained, “women have tended to run their business either as lifestyle choices, or to scale, but have often found that in between juggling home responsibilities, they’ve not built the ecosystem around them to support massive growth. TiECON is an opportunity – an inflexion point to catalyse this.”
Describing other highlights of the TiECON Pune, Vishwas Mahajan said, “Pune has always been at the forefront of manufacturing in India. Thus, as part of TiECON Pune, this year there is a dedicated track for entrepreneurs with an eye on manufacturing.”
“Under the tie-together section of the TiECON Pune, we aim providing a platform for start-ups from smaller towns, since we believe that start-up activity is not restricted to the metros and big town. There are inspiring stories from towns like Nagpur, Hubli, Indore and several non-metro cities in India. New platforms such as India Stack and new funds are looking to facilitate start-ups from such cities”, he added.
According to Ravi Nigam, who has been handling the ‘Nurture’ program of TiE Pune “Mentor Lab”@ TiECON Pune 2017 would be one of the key highlights of the event. It would be an intensive 30 minutes one to one engagement between Mentors and set of curated start-ups to discuss their business challenges. The Mentors comprise of successful entrepreneurs, opinion leaders, top industry subject matter experts comprising finance, sales and marketing, design thinking and innovation, operation, strategy etc to name a few. Here, you are required to pre-book a 30 minutes slot with the mentor of your choice for the session and if you are shortlisted by the mentor board, you will get a chance to participate.
“TiE Nurture is a full-fledged programme of mentoring start-ups to actualize their potential and garner funding opportunities. Every year the programme has been receiving over 100 applications. Last year 10 start-ups were selected for the programme but in 2017, the number has scaled upto 18. After selection, these start-ups are given 8 to 10 months long training. They are mentored to achieve a standing in the industry and at the end of the training they also get opportunities for funding or to scale up. In the 6 year long journey of this programme about 40 start-ups have been successfully mentored. “We interview all the participants and select them on the basis of merit. We welcome all kinds of start-ups led by young entrepreneurs. Our focus is mainly on innovation and unique ideas that can be nurtured to become successful. This programme not only enables them with practical knowledge but also provides mentoring from internationally acclaimed experts,” said Kiran Deshpande.
“TiECON Pune is known for having the highest quality of speakers on board”, said Gaurav Mehra. Some of the prominent speakers this year from the panel of speakers at TiECON Pune include Nana Patekar (Indian Film actor, philanthropist social cause evangelist), Jaydeep Barman (Co-Founder Faasos), Sharmila Bhide (Co-founder CalSoft and Founder HausKhaas), Anand Deshpande (Founder and CMD Persistent Systems), Suresh Anantpurkar (Consultant Digital Payments / UPI), Santosh Bhat (Head of Data Sciences – Hotstar), L C Singh (Founder Nihilent Technologies) and Dr. Velumani (CEO Thyrocare Technologies Limited).
TiECON Pune in instituting awards from this year and the awards would be given to inspiring women entrepreneurs, Pune’s best start-ups and the TiE Together awards in recognition of outstanding start-ups from across central and western India.
