Zone Startups India Selects 15 Women Entrepreneurs For Accelerator Programme empoWer

Mumbai-based technology startup accelerator Zone Startups India has selected 15 women entrepreneurs for its accelerator programme titled empoWer.

Zone Startups India, a venture fund and accelerator housed at BSE, launched the 6-week accelerator programme – “empoWer” in April 2016, to support women entrepreneurs who are building technology ventures.

The candidates have been selected from 181 applications received from all over India that are using technology as an enabler in their ventures. The program starts on 17th June and will culminate with a demo day on 29th July. It will extend INR 60 lakhs in cash and professional services to the top performers. The program will comprise mentoring sessions, workshops, industry connects, case studies of successful women led startups, peer-to-peer, and investor connects.

Talking about the program, Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director, Zone Startups India, said, “We felt that it was the right time to do an accelerator program focused, given the buzz in the ecosystem and the media, around women founders. With this program, we aim to enable women entrepreneurs build a strong peer network, as well as help broaden their network – which seem to be two major issues affecting a lot of women entrepreneurs. Most importantly, with this program, we believe that we can create women leaders with great business skills.”

Here are the 15 Women Entrepreneurs Selected For the Accelerator Program

Saumya Vardhan : Saumya has over 10+ years of international consulting, industry and entrepreneurship experience. She launched Shubhpuja.com, a unique science & technology based O2O platform for providing authentic Vedic services through educated and qualified professionals.

Saagarika Jagadeesh: Saagarika has completed B.E. (Telecom) and MBA from Canada. After acquiring experience at Canadian Work Association, she started Primitus Technology, a customer service provider for auto dealerships. It couples robust technology with human interaction to achieve highest possible customer satisfaction and efficiency.

Smita Mishra: Smita has been in the working world for about 15 years. She is the Founder & CEO of PoolWallet, a pooling platform for gifting unique experiences. PoolWallet offers interoperability for seamless group payments and unique social experiences.

Vidya Jayaraman: Before moving full-time into teaching Mathematics, Vidya worked in the chemical Industry for 7 years. She is the founder of Math Adventures, an initiative focused on making mathematics meaningful for children.

Mausumi Acharyya: Mausumi is an expert imaging and AI professional and a number of patents in this area are to her credit. She started Advenio TecnoSys a company that develops AI/machine learning-based hardware neutral CADx plugins for clinical imaging.

Sanskriti Dawle: Sanskriti is an undergraduate student of computer science at BITS Pilani, Goa, India. She co-founded Project Mudra, a Braille ed-tech startup. They develop new age Braille teachers in the form of handy devices and interactive content.

Kanika Jain: Kanika did her BA LLB from the Faculty of Law. She led operations for the Delhi Hub of 91springboard after which she co-founded SquadRun, an on-demand distributed workforce platform for back-office operational work.

Renu Bisht: Renu has consulting experience across industries offering management and IT consulting perspective to client organisation. She co-founded Vanity Cube, a mobile platform which allows users to book last minute beauty services at their convenience.

Tarusha Mittal: Tarusha started Koonk Technologies earlier and has now founded Cloudrino, a go-to place for all Cloud related requirements.

Bhargavi Sridharan: Bhargavi is passionate about financial freedom for average person. With a decade of experience in corporate & project finance she decided to start FinMitra, a Fintech company which enables financial freedom to mass-market Asian Customers.

Richa Singh: Richa is the founder of YourDOST, a platform that allows you to connect with experts to discuss issues related to your personal, professional and academic life.

Sweta Joshi: Sweta has a background of Marketing and Social Venture drives the vision, strategy and growth of her co-founded venture Algaari Retail Ventures, which provides innovative and cost effective sustainable technologies that make a difference.

Suhani Mohan: Suhani is an Acumen India Fellow and recipient of India Africa Young Visionary award from Ministry of External Affairs, India. She co-founded Saral Designs,  a startup providing access to high quality affordable menstrual hygiene products to women in India.

Aditi Chadha: Aditi is a recipient of the SheCEO award and experience of about 7 years in Silicon Valley. She is the Founder, CEO and Product Architect at DAZL,  a collection of luxe smart jewellery which deliver location based safety alerts to your loved ones.

Nilima Achwal: Nilima is an entrepreneur working toward gender equality in India through high-impact, scalable approaches. She founded iesha, a platform that delivers digital courses on sexual, reproductive, and gender education in India, accessible on tablet and computer.