IWSB : Ankita (PGP11) Awarded CBFW–NEN fellow, meets WOMEN leaders in WOMEN mean BUSINESS conference in MUMBAI

Ankita Gupta, PGP11 student of IWSB, bags Cherie Blair Foundation for Women-National Entrepreneurship Network Fellow. IWSB is proud of Ankita, on being awarded one of the 10 future potential women entrepreneurial leaders fellowship for this year.

Ankita Gupta, PGP11 student, IWSB

She has been awarded this fellow for her exceptional role in not only demonstrating her entrepreneurial spirit through her endeavours but also strengthening NEN Entrepreneurship Cell at IWSB. The letter from NEN Trust team commends Ankita, by adding, “We hope that our Fellowship program, developed in partnership with Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (CBFW), will provide you with opportunities to grow and become one among strong entrepreneurial leaders, not only in the NEN community but also beyond”

Ankita Gupta of IWSB with the CBFW-NEN award

Ankita was invited for the CBFW ‘Women Mean Business’ Conference on December 8, 2010 in Mumbai. Her profile featured in the brochure of the event in the special section on the ten CBFW-NEN Fellows selected for this year. She got an opportunity for special interaction in person, with five women leaders of her choice.

Ankita Gupta of IWSB with the cherie Blair and other awardees

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw interacting with Ankita and others

Ankita Gupta of IWSB with the other awardees on the stage

Women Leaders interacting

Ankita in her own words, “The conference was amazing…It was very different from all my past attended conferences since, this time I could really find people around me willing to know about me, my college -IWSB, our activities, our specialties etc.etc…

I met many eminent personalities…Cherie Blair, Shailesh Rao (Google), Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (Biocon), Rachna Nath (Pricewaterhousecoopers), Dr. Sunita Maheshwari (Teleradiology), Reema Nanavaty (Sewa), Jatinder Kaur Arora (Punjab State council for Science & Tech.) are among those with whom we (Cherie Blair Fellows) could have special interactive sessions(arranged by NEN).

It was an amazing experience overall and I believe that the knowledge I could gain in this conference is going to help me in long term.

I sincerely thank for the support that I have always received from the college and I am sure that with the kind of efforts which we all have been putting together… IWSB has a great bright future”

Before heading to the conference Ankita shared, “Thanks a lot for wishes from everyone. Please let me share that it has been possible because of the support and faith of Prof. Arindam Lahiri who helped me a lot to clear every step in the process. I must say that IWSB should be proud to have professors like him.”

Ankita along with Shobhit jain (PGP11) were the two-member team from IWSB that won the national award for presenting ‘Business Models in the rural domain’ at the RURAL MARKETING ASSOCIATION OF INDIA competition for best summer project conducted at IIM Bangalore. They were awarded the GOLD MEDAL for their project ahead of quite a few projects from various IIMs and top B-Schools.

This project (manufacturing of Sanitary Napkins by women’s self help groups in Uttarakhand) was initiated by a few Alumni of IWSB – Jaydeep and his team with the help of NIF (national innovation foundation) Fellows, where in Ankita and Shobit contributed immensely in building up as part of their summer project. They then evolved their work into a model that can be of a great value in building up new rural businesses.

Check the detailed report on this blog posting – RMAI award for ‘Business Models in Rural Doman’

Looking forward to your comments here or write to sreeni@iwsb.in