Bangalore, 22 January, 2018: Registrations are open for the Women Start-up Programme (WSP), conducted by IIMB’s NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) and funded by Goldman Sachs, a global investment bank and active investor in India and the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India.

The partner institutions for incubation are CIIE’s Innocity in Ahmedabad, IIM Indore, IIM Nagpur, IIM Udaipur, IIM Visakhapatnam, and Presidency University, Kolkata.

Please visit http://wsp.nsrcel.org  for registration.

The Women’s Start-up Programme is India’s first customized online and classroom initiative designed to enthuse aspiring female entrepreneurs-in-the-making across the country. The programme seeks to facilitate the growth of women entrepreneurs by providing in-depth training to foster and augment managerial and entrepreneurial skills through mentoring, incubation, and financial support.

During the coming year, the WSP will provide training for up to 12,000 women through its five-week “Do Your Venture” Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), which has been customized to encourage women to systematically identify and test their business ideas. Thereafter, 300 women entrepreneurs-to-be will be shortlisted for a boot camp to be held at partner campuses in the towns nearest to them, where they will receive classroom instructions on communications and customer interaction. From the 300 ventures, a select 100 women entrepreneurs will then travel to IIMB for a second boot camp, where they will receive classroom instructions on developing a business plan, understanding costing and pricing, sales and marketing, and negotiation skills.

During this period, they will also have networking opportunities with successful women entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, IIMB students, and Goldman Sachs professionals. After the completion of the boot camp, these women entrepreneurs will have their business ideas incubated for a year at a partner institution of their choice where each women will also receive INR 30,000 per month for financial support and funding from a small prototype fund to run their ventures.