Australia to fund new programme at WE Hub

WE Hub and the Australian government partner to offer a 13-week pre-incubation programme supporting women, marginalized groups and the LGBTIQ+ community in entrepreneurship.

A 13-week pre-incubation programme to support women, the marginalised and the LGBTIQ+ community in entrepreneurship will be offered by WE Hub with the support of Australian government.

The partnership was announced during the visit of Minister for IT and Industries Duddilla Sridhar Babu and Australia’s High Commissioner to India Philip Green to WE Hub on Monday. StartX, the new programme funded by the Australian government, follows an exclusive pre-incubation programme ‘Upsurge,’ which had been organised earlier for 180 women entrepreneurs with the support of the Australian High Commission, the Minister said in a release.

With StartX, WE Hub is poised to become a single platform for more women across the State to set up viable startups in the social space and eventually tap the global market, he said, adding that women empowerment would be the foundation of Telangana’s growth.

Listing out the schemes for women such as the free bus rides and the proposed supply of cooking gas cylinders at ₹500, Mr. Babu said, “We believe that if the ground-level issues of women are not solved, we cannot enable them to step outside to compete in the world.” Moreover, the MSME policy being conceptualised would help more women graduates to become entrepreneurs and create jobs in their local communities, he said.

Procurement

The Minister also said the government would come up with legal processes to procure from women entrepreneurs.

“Australia was WE Hub’s first international partner... look forward to working with WE Hub and the government of Telangana to deliver Start-X, which is a new initiative focused on instilling entrepreneurial skills in women, marginalised communities and the LGBTIQ+ community in the State,” Mr Green said.