W@W is a flagship initiative of the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission and Karnataka Skill Development Corporation
Bengaluru, 8th March 2023: In an effort to bring women-focused programs of various partners under one umbrella, Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) and Karnataka Skill Development Corporation (KSDC) celebrated the first anniversary of its flagship initiative Women@Work today on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
The primary objective of the Women @ Work (W@W) initiative is to enable women to participate in the workforce actively and enable “Return to Work” for those, who have taken career breaks.
Celebrating the 1st anniversary of this program at the IAS Officers Association, Dr. C. N. Ashwathnarayan, Minister for Electronics, ITBT and Science & Technology, Higher Education and Skill Development, Livelihood, and Entrepreneurship, Government of Karnataka said “On this year’s International Women’s Day 2023, we invite all our partners in progress to work together towards enabling the ecosystem for the women’s workforce in Karnataka, holistically. We want to create an industry-wide platform to host skill-based corporate programs identifying a large, curated database of employable women in the state of Karnataka. Along with this we also want to drive women-led businesses from the State.”
“The initiative focuses on skilling, reskilling & upskilling for various jobs & businesses and ensuring women-friendly state policies for their accelerated growth” added Dr. C. N. Ashwathnarayan.
Following were key launches & MoU exchanges at this event to provide skilling, employment & startup opportunities:
• W@W platform launch for all of the above programs
• Launch of a Virtual Job fair for women
• Launch of Future Digital Jobs program for women – with 5000 jobs opportunities currently available
Following were the MoUs exchanged:
• Accelerate – training, research reports, events & placements
• Apar People world Software Pvt Ltd – training, job fairs & placements
• Brisa Technologies Pvt. Ltd. – training & placements
• IFIN Global – training, job fairs & placements
• Masai School – training, job fairs & placements
• Robosoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. – training & placements
• Zylxy Technologies Pvt. Ltd. – training, events & placements
Dr. S. Selvakumar, Principal Secretary to Government, Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Livelihood, Government of Karnataka, expressed his happiness about the initiative and said, “The program, is an exclusive partnership between Government & Corporate which will surely amplify their efforts to enable women to participate in the workforce and offers reskilling/upskilling programs to women on Karnataka Skill Connect Portal.”
Mr. Sanjeev Gupta, the CEO, of KDEM, said “This collaboration will provide a support system bringing women back to work. In a first-of-its-kind, mega outreach for government and corporate initiatives, we have created a platform for potential women job seekers across Karnataka, to access employment opportunities and their skill gap as well. We invite corporates/startups to leverage the platform by partnering with the W@W initiative which is a one-stop solution for women to skill/ upskill in emerging technologies. We need active support from all stakeholders to drive this initiative that will ultimately add business value to their organizations.”
The event brought together industry leaders, corporates, government policymakers, academicians, skilling partners, and job recruiters to act upon the initiative and share their knowledge and best practices. Some of the corporates signed up for the Women@Work initiative and will be helping in providing skilling & employment opportunities to potential Women job seekers.
Many sessions on – women-specific skilling initiatives of Karnataka, Karnataka Skill Connect: Enabling Women through digital skilling platforms, schemes on women development in Karnataka, and the role of industry in skilling women were held during the event. Industry anchors highlighted the best practices and action items for one year to enable Women@Work.
