Andhra Pradesh’s Minister for Information Technology and Industries Gudivada Amarnath has said that a special women’s cell for women start-ups will be set up across the State to encourage woman entrepreneurs.
The idea was a part of the women empowerment strategies being adopted the government, Mr. Amarnath said while speaking at the inaugural of the two-day conference of women entrepreneurs organised here on October 5 (Thursday) by the Startups India and AP Innovation Society.
The Minister said the government was implementing various welfare schemes and programmes that werer aimed at benefiting women.
The Minister further directed Kona Sasidhar, Principal Secretary of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications Department, to work immediately for the establishment of women’s cell across the State.
The Minister said there were only 150 start-ups in the country related to space activities.
“I have come to know of it during the World Space Week programme organised in the city. So, I request interested women to start working in start-ups in the Space sector and the State government is here to support you in all aspects,” Mr. Amarnath said.
Referring to the report of Deloitte India and Nasscom, the Minister said Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati had been included in the list of 26 emerging technology hubs.
A total of 180 women entrepreneurs attended the workshop on day one. About 25 start-ups pitched their ideas.
Interacting with The Hindu on the sidelines of the programme, D. Alekhya of Rajahmundry-based start-up, Learning Squirrels, said they had started their unit during the COVID-19 period with four children and then expanded the unit to Visakhapatnam.
“Our start-up is like an institution to teach practical knowledge to children studying Class 3 and above. This means that the school-going children are taught the basics with experiments. Parents can send their children to our institution for an hour like they send their children for sports, dance classes etc.,” said Ms. Alekhya.
D. Supriya, owner of another start-up called ‘Puakai’, a seaweed-based food unit, said that by using seaweed byproducts brought from Cochin and Kerala, they were making food items like sweets and cosmetics.
