By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JULY 20, 2018: NITI Aayog's Women Entrepreneurship Platform( WEP) and Mr Sriram College of Commerce (SRCC), Office of International Programmes (OIP) University of Delhi, jointly organised  a Two-Day International conference on "Empowering Women: Fostering Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Sustainability", early this week.

The Inaugural event was presided by Mr Venkaiah Naidu, Vice President of India as Chief Guest, Dr Kiran Bedi, Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, as Guest of Honor, Mr Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, and Mr Ajay S. Ram, Chairman, Governing Body, SRCC.

The Vice President in his address emphasized on increasing education and skilling for the economic empowerment of women and stressed on the need for propagating an attitudinal change for the same. Based on the mantra given by the Prime Minister, he underscored the ‘Reforming, Performing and Transforming' role to be played by NITI Aayog.

The Guest of Honour, Dr Kiran Bedi spoke of ensuring that India reaps the benefits of “Gender Dividend” along with demographic dividend. She also highlighted the importance of provisioning of different ‘family services' to ease the workload of working women.

Mr Amitabh Kant stated that for India to grow at 9-10 per cent for three decades consistently and reap the dividend of demographic advantage, promoting entrepreneurship among women has to be the key strategy. If women don't do well then the society faces an inter-generational cycle of malnutrition and infant mortality, he added.