9th March 2024, New Delhi: On the occasion of International Women’s Day, SMEStreet conducted an online forum for Women leaders across the world and a panel discussion on SMEStreet Empowered Women: Empowering Tomorrow’s Leadership to celebrate and acknowledge the role of Women in today’s economic development.

International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on March 8th, is a global occasion that honours the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women worldwide.

This panel discussion highlighted the experiences, challenges, and successes of women entrepreneurs, while also providing valuable insights and inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals alike.

Shared insights, experiences, and recommendations on fostering an environment conducive to empowered women’s entrepreneurship and leadership.

Emphasizing on the need for inclusive development, Prof Sasmita Samanta, CMD of SOUL commented, “Contribution of women in each and every sector is immense in today’s context. And not just today but women in almost all ages have contributed immensely for social and economical development.

There was some discretion but I think that today we talk about inclusive development along with gender equality in today’s world. Now if we talk about economic growth and development, then we must consider overall economic development. Whether it is the intellectual development, social development, moral development and economic development status of women must be discussed.”

Emphasizing on the contribution of education in developing women’s role in economic development, Mrs Sunita Maheshwari, Co-Founder DealPlexus.com stated, “At the grassroot level the education system and more importantly our social mindset needs to change or evolve. Only education has the power to uplift the society and economic development. In my view, the government has a very subsidiary role to play. It’s more of the family mindset, especially of the parents, that needs to change. Although the Government is doing its sincere contribution toward women empowerment and girl child development, yet real change can only be seen if parents can educate the children, not just girls, but more importantly boys, to understand about the equal roles and contributions that both the genders have to play in the society. ”

Dr Lulwa AlMutlaq, leadership coach and women entrepreneur from Bahrain, presented her perspective on skill development and experience by adding, “I would like to emphasize the fact that women empowerment is a journey. It starts with self-development. Women must take the initiative to start developing her skills, knowledge and most importantly attitude towards awareness of her role and potential. Skill development is also a must-to-consider factor for most of the women entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs.”

The session was moderated by Dr Faiz Askari, Founder of SMEStreet and he also emphasized the importance of Women in business’ growth and overall economic development. Dr Askari mentioned, “International Women’s Day is to recognize the progress made towards gender equality and to acknowledge the ongoing challenges that women face. This day serves as a reminder of the importance of gender parity and the empowerment of women in all spheres of life. We at SMEStreet are committed to work towards inclusive development in which role and contribution of women is important and must be nurtured.”