Gone are the days when women were confined to the four walls of their homes to perform household chores. From not being able to advance beyond a certain level in the 1980s to rising to the highest ranks in the corporate sector, today’s women have traversed a long way. They are no more cowed down by the ‘glass ceiling’ effect. In fact, the women entrepreneurs are expanding their entrepreneurial horizons and venturing into a wide range of business areas. They are now becoming their own boss.
There is no dearth of examples of women who have reached the top in their respective fields defying gender stereotypes. Ahead of International Women’s Day, Sunday POST talked to a few successful women entrepreneurs who have blazed new trails in the industry to inspire thousands.
Jayashree Mohanty
(Top entrepreneur in IT sector)
While talking about women entrepreneurship in Odisha, Jayashree Mohanty is certainly a name that has motivated hundreds of wannabe entrepreneurs. As the co-founder and president of Luminous Infoways, a Bhubaneswar-based IT services company, she has broken the gender bias from the word go. In 2001, she decided to set up her business in Bhubaneswar when startups were not recognised as a viable career option. She took the plunge turning down a lucrative job offer in the government sector. Her bold decision was backed by Tanmay Mohanty, then her business partner who eventually became her co-pilot in life. From starting the company in a 2 BHK rented house with just two people to employing over 1,000 IT professionals today, Jayashree has consistently proven her mettle as a technology entrepreneur, managing more than 100 small and medium scale projects across different geographies like India, USA, Middle East, Norway, New Zealand and Australia. Luminous Infoways offers a proven integrated portfolio of IT & IT-enabled services in both open source & Microsoft Technologies. In addition to Bhubaneswar, the company has its offices in London, Delhi, Itanagar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Guwahati. Jayashree has received several awards for her IT Solutions in the e-Governance and Corporate sectors. She also won the Leading Lady Entrepreneur 2015 STPI Exports award and was recently recognised for her promotion of women empowerment in the MSME segment. An alumnus of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and Nyenrode Business University, Netherlands, Jayshree has been championing the cause of women entrepreneurship in Odisha for many years now.
Asked about her motivation, she says, “The desire to do something different which will help the society grow was my motivation. I wanted to create an army of tech-savvy people in my enterprise. ”
However, Jayashree’s journey was not a cakewalk as it entailed lots of dedication and effort. About the initial challenges, she recalls, “Twenty years back the word ‘start-up’ was not even coined. The ecosystem was not conducive. I have to deal with all the challenges starting from finance, markets, brain drains and the factors affecting the markets. With resilience and connecting with the right people, I could overcome the hurdles. With our rigorous efforts, we are now recognised as a brand of Odisha and pride of India. We provide equal opportunities to women and men. We now have a core group of experts that converts Government schemes, Acts and Rules into IT initiatives having a strong citizen centric perspective.”
About her biggest achievement, Jayshree says, “The Govt of Odisha inducted me into the Startup Task-force, which gave an opportunity to use my expertise to grow and help all startups that accessed me, to grow.”
Talking about her future plan, she says, “I would like to build a world class centre of excellence and research centre to learn industry practices and best technologies to resources here. As CII IWN chairperson I would also like to see more women taking up key positions in the industry.”
Before signing off, she advises budding entrepreneurs to believe in themselves and have a determination to work hard to get recognised by the people or organisations that matter.
Arati Devi
(India’s youngest sarpanch and promoter of organic products)
She became India’s youngest sarpanch in 2012 to bring about a change in her village and for that she quit her fat-salaried job. Since then, Arati Devi from Dhunkapada village in Polasara block of Ganjam has been championing the causes of women, children and environment. She made headlines again in 2014 after representing India at the International Leadership Programme on State and Local Governments, held in the US. There, she got the opportunity to meet the then US president Barack Obama and other world dignitaries. No wonder, she was feted with the Adarsh Sarpanch award in 2015. She has also been working relentlessly to revive the traditional folk art troupes of her village. Her other identity is that she is a successful entrepreneur. She has founded Biogram, an emerging brand built on the promise of plant-derived products. She is transforming the lives by creating sustainable livelihood for the locals and empowering women.
About her journey from a banker to Sarpanch, she says, “I was the first girl student at our village to get first class in Class X board examination in 1999. After pursuing MBA, I was working at IDBI Bank in Berhampur. In 2012, I decided to switch profession by contesting panchayat polls as I thought it was the best time to do something for society. After winning the poll, my first priority was to improve village-level governance and streamline the Public Distribution System (PDS) in the village as I have noticed how families were deprived of getting stuff through PDS.”
Besides, she also launched a literacy project in her panchayat under which 750 women became educated. She has planted around 1.5 lakh trees and dug up ponds for the wellbeing of animals. For her immense contribution towards nature, she received the Prakruti Mitra Award.
Asked about her foray into wellness products, she adds: “I believe nature has a lot of healthy and beneficial ingredients that Ayurvedic science had formulated centuries ago. Thereafter, I started my quest to come up with products and develop a range of hair, face and body care products using natural ingredients and with approved Ayurvedic formulation. Due to God’s grace, we have received an overwhelming response to our products as well as to our flagship store. Inspired by this success, we want to take our products to consumers across the country.
Chidatmika Khatua
(Social entrepreneur)
She is a social entrepreneur, organiser of India’s first Tribal Queen Contest, and recipient of Honorary Doctorate from the Commonwealth Vocational University, Kingdom of Tonga. Known widely for her outstanding contribution for the growth of tribal community, Chidatmika Khatua also received Honorary Doctorate for Peace Education, from United Nations University for Global peace, USA. She has got the biggest recognition as founder of India’s 1st tribal queen contest ‘Adi Rani’ with a mission to make tribal women empowerment and uplift tribal culture and tradition with its originality. All she wants is to create an India where all tribal women will get equal opportunity as other women’s get in the society and connect all tribal women globally to showcase their talent, tradition and culture worldwide
What made you launch the tribal beauty pageant? To this, she responds “Basically everyone knows that tribal people all over the world are distinct for their unique tradition and culture, their honesty, simplicity and all. But they were somehow moving away from their originality and individuality. With an aim to stop the decline and to enable them to present themselves before people with confidence, I conceptualized the ‘Adi Rani’ project. The idea was to empower tribal women and make them join the mainstream of the society. More than 100 tribal women participated across the country out of which 30 got shortlisted. And finally Pallavi Durua from Koraput won the title.”
On her dream, Khatua elaborates, “My dream is to create a brainstorming Tribal India where all tribal women will get equal opportunity as other women get in society , to bring them to the mainstream and connect all tribal women globally to showcase their talent, tradition and culture worldwide. For the last twenty years I have been working to create livelihood opportunities for the tribal populace. After Adi Rani India, now, I want to organise Adi Rani Earth, World and Universe.”
About the secret of her success, she says “I always understand who I am and what I can give back to the society and always feel great whatever God has given to me. I do believe in angels because they exist in the form of people who stand behind you. For me, trusting God is the key to success.”
Apart from Adi Rani Project she is working for hunger free India. About this initiative, she says, “I am co-founder of Hunger Free Odisha. This foundation has officially been registered in 2018, where our vision is to make Odisha free from hunger by 2030. God has created this earth giving rights for food for everybody. It is we humans who have disturbed this balance. So my foundation is trying its best to provide food to as many people as possible. We provided food to nearly four lakh underprivileged families during the pandemic.”
Rashmi Rekha Das,OP