Smriti Irani, Hon’ble Union Minister of Textiles, GoI, also holding additional charge of Women & Child Development and presently the youngest Minister in the council of ministers orally announced the “e-portal – www.vialewudyogika.com” open and also giving her best wishes and congratulations to the Lady Entrepreneurs’ Wing of Vidarbha Industries Association. She also spoke on “Women Empowerment through Entrepreneurship,” which was conducted under the able chairmanship of Manisha Bawankar, VIA LEW.
She expressed her gratitude towards Chandrashekhar Bawankule, for providing her with the opportunity to be a part of VIA LEW program and for launching the multivendor e-commerce portal.
In her golden inspirational words she started by saying that the invitation to entrepreneurship should not be restricted to based on client gender alone but to be extended to all and the greatest challenge faced by the women entrepreneur is to make product which would be liked by other women and their families, emphasizing that the entire gamut should be to target public at large and not restricted to a few.
About the products, she said should be different from the rest, with good quality and competitive with lucrative prices so that people would be inclined to buy it, thereby expanding the horizon of business.
On digital platforms she said women entrepreneurs should be supported with design facets on the website so as to make their portal attractive and visitable. She quoted an example of instagram wherein it has a wide base related to fashion, home accessories and eatables and how sensibly it is designed to be attractive. She insisted every woman entrepreneur should take advantage of digital platforms like whatsapp, twitter and facebook to popularize their products. She stressed on the importance of guiding the entrepreneurs as the greatest challenge lies in teaching design and marketing skills. This is even more important looking to the lessons we have learned in the current pandemic situation she added.
Further, she laid emphasis on how to plan in future by alerting the women entrepreneur about the fiscal needs, marketing needs and at the same time to seek help from the investors in their next phase of growth so that the dream to grow is not restricted. This according to her can be achieved by building an assessment team which will analyze the traffic of the product.
She said most of the women get satisfied only by building a good Product launching platform, however, there is a need to shift the goal post to think beyond and take the products to new heights by cooperation amongst like minded women entrepreneurs coming together to make different products ultimately forming parts of one big product.
She stressed the importance of having the web portal in regional Marathi language along with Hindi and English languages so that all the women entrepreneurs’ could easily understand and monitor their web space aptly. She opined that a multitude of opportunities would open up once the portal gets started being the first step and Vidarbha can start the whole engine of growth for women entrepreneurs.
She said that the women talent should be linked digitally to make growth multifold and expressed her happiness and gratitude towards all the members of VIA LEW team for providing the opportunity to the women entrepreneurs to show their talents through the launching of the digital platform.
On a lighter note she concluded by saying that COVID has taught a man to SWEEP N MOP and women to be Digitally Learned, contrary to the myth that women are averse to technological adaptability, while praising the efforts put by VIA LEW in making digital platforms a reality.
Earlier Manisha Bawankar, Chairperson, VIA LEW gave the opening remarks and welcomed the guests, in her welcome address mentioned that VIA LEW had provided a platform to Lady Entrepreneurs to exhibit their hidden talents and to display their products in UDYOJIKA for the last 24 years, but, due to current pendamic situation conducting UDYOJIKA was not possible. However, she expressed her joy in starting Help desk online facility and gateway to world trade centre facebook page for the members to promote their products on the social media page, and launching of multivendor e-commerce platform www.vialewudyogika.com in its Silver jubilee year, which will help empowering women from local to global.
She further appealed to support our platform www.vialewudyojika.com by buying products “Locally Sourced, Locally Made” by lady entrepreneurs which is the result of the hard work & power of women and also brought to you by women”.
Madhubala Singh, Project Director of e-portal vendors, and instrumental in designing the portal which is a unique platform in connecting people globally and to continue udyogika in new form, gave the detailed information of the digital portal. These include separate URL codes to every vendor, wherein, the vendor will be admin of their own store, upload their products, search, store banners, and go global from local. Further, the portal also provides information on vendors which are arranged alphabetically, new arrivals, discounts, most viewed products and has a blog. Vendors include vendors of paintings, paper mashie dolls, fabric paintings, hand crafted wall décor, aroma-essential oils and fragrances, bags, thread painting glasses, hand painted kurties, jackets, aloevera based skin care and hair products, garland flowers jewellery sets, fancy dresses and Gods idols dresses, khadi and silk garments, real estate developers and constructions, architects, lightings and led lightings, designers boutiques for customized dress, silk sarees, dry fruits, art deco pieces, marble gift wall pictures, herbal health, skin, eye products.
Special thanks were given to Himanshu Subramaniam, owner of Whiz Software and Business Solutions for Marketing, who created this website and e-portal.
Suresh Rathi, President of VIA, expressed gratitude towards Chandrashekar Bawankule, for always supporting the cause of VIA, and praised all the VIA LEW team for coming up with the unique e-portal website which will continue the udyojika program and connect the people across the globe even in the difficult times of covid and praised the ladies who have managed the household work and business at the same time in the current scenario. He praised all the lady entrepreneurs and said they are sincere and take very appropriate calculated risk and their leadership world over is now recognized. Further, he expressed to make Nagpur an example of women entrepreneurs’ hub after adapting technology. He expressed that the digitalized dream motivated by ladies wing be fulfilled which would bring revolution in society and country. He extended his full support to the VIA LEW.
Chandrashekhar Bawankule, graced the occasion by his presence and without his efforts the webinar could not have been a great success.
Rashmi Kulkarni, Treasurer introduced the guest speaker and conducted the program in a grand manner. Prominently present were VIA EC members, VIA LEW Executive committee members viz Sarla Kamdar, Prafullata Rode, Madhubala Singh, Sarita Pawar, Past Presidents Saeeda Haque, Chitra Parate, Y. Ramani, Neelam Bowade, Anjali Gupta, Anita Rao, Vandana Sharma, Shachi Malik, Immediate Past President Reeta Lanjewar, Vice Presidents Indu Kshirsagar, Shikha Khare, PRO Yogita Deshmukh, EC Member Poonam Gupta, included in 160 plus participants. Poonam Lala, Secretary, VIA LEW proposed vote of thanks.
All the entrepreneurs and participants were enlightened by the talks.
