To develop the entrepreneurship ecosystem of Gujarat while ensuring diversity and inclusion, the city’s PU yet again organized its annual Women Start-up Meet, an innovative and interactive way to mentor girls and women students about the importance of strategies, success, and sharing ideas in entrepreneurship. Some of these inspirational women entrepreneurs included Dr. Anar Mehta, Founder Shristi Bharat Foundation, Taruna Suryavanshi (Director, Cinemarc Multiplexes), Dr. Sayantani Pramanik (Co-founder and Product Lead, Pragmatech Healthcare Solutions), Neha Dasadia (CEO, Etransit Security System), Hetal Soni (MD, Viecell Bioceuticals, Founder, Purple salon n Wellness), and many others. This Startup Meet featured visionary women entrepreneurs with their empowering personalities who, through their interactions, advised the budding entrepreneurs to diligently follow any ideas they come up with and work on them until they turn into a success.

This 2 day, start-up convergence of minds brought together keynote speakers who were successful women entrepreneurs bearing recognitions for their ideas and worked on them to turn them into established businesses. The Women Startup Meet 4.0 served as a platform where startups and aspiring entrepreneurs could shape their ideas, providing effective support and mentorship for developing homegrown products as part of the Make In India initiative, which, according to Neha Dasadia, has been provided to PU’s students through mentorship in innovation, “you need to encourage women more by breaking their socio-economic barriers, she said". Additionally during her remarks, Taruna Suryavanshi, shared that “even though our world has evolved in liberalization, there are still many women who are not able to execute their ideas into a business model due to a lack of accessibility, knowledge, motivation, and guidance.” “Starting somewhere and grabbing the opportunity is important”, she added.

The composition of this grand platform featured panel discussions, start-up masterclasses, start-up Nivesh, start-up idea pitching, mentor garage and talk sessions entitled “She Tales” where various prominent personalities in the start-up domain shared their journeys and also clarified the doubts of the students. In addition, burning topics such as, womenpreneurs: problems to prospect, navigating the startup landscape: advice from women pioneers and breaking barriers: overcoming gender bias in entrepreneurship. During the panel discussion on “Breaking Barriers: Overcoming Gender Bias in Entrepreneurship”, panelists including Latika Singh (co-founder, CrmOne) and Dr. Trishala Punjabi (CEO, BharatMD), took the stage and filled the room with inspiring stories of their journeys and how they did not let gender bias intrude on their success.

The session featured some of the prominent women entrepreneurs like Menka Gurnani, Vinisha Ruparel, Priti Seth, Jinal Shah, Dr. Sayantani Pramanik, Nikita Lalwani and more who presented their insights about empowering women entrepreneurs. Beyond the students of PU, the meet also provided a platform to women and girls from local village communities, who hold a passion for entrepreneurship. Women Startup 4.0 concluded with speakers mentioning how crucial it is to take up leadership roles and this supporting ecosystem provided women entrepreneurs with the knowledge and understanding to their businesses across various domains.

The meet included 20+ women entrepreneur speakers and mentors with over 3,500 female participants along with an 80+ female entrepreneur team who pitched their ideas during idea-exchanging sessions. To empower women entrepreneurs to commence their startup, Parul Innovation & Entrepreneurship Research Centre (PIERC) has supported many students and ambitious entrepreneurs in their startup journey. With this dedicated support, PIERC has taken many women entrepreneur’s ideas to a growth stage that has resulted in reaching their startups to a new height.