Association Of Women Entrepreneurs Of Karnataka

In December 1983, seven successful women entrepreneurs Ms. Madhura Chatrapathy, Ms. Kiran Majumdar, Ms. Lekha Chand, Ms. Shandrila Naidu, Ms. Indrajeet Sahani, Ms. Aban Minochar and Ms. Supanya Datta got together and formed Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Karnataka, for short, AWAKE, in Bangalore With the vision to build a strong force of women entrepreneurs, they motivated women to embark on their endeavour of entrepreneurship and supported them to establish themselves as successful entrepreneurs, thus helping them to join the economic mainstream.

In 1984, AWAKE started with Business Counseling as its main service offered to prospective women entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs were enrolled as Members of AWAKE. Over the years, Entrepreneurship Development training was offered comprising of Awareness programs, Entrepreneurship Development Program and Skill development trainings and workshops.

AWAKE extended its services as a support agency by organizing conferences and networking platforms for its members and thereby enhanced their growth. AWAKE became a portal for exchange of information that lead to the establishment of Research and Resource Centre. AWAKE expedited the growth of women entrepreneurs in food processing by establishing a Business Incubation Centre at Bangalore.

AWAKE started associating and collaborating with several agencies to support its activities. Initially, the activities of AWAKE were concentrated in Bangalore and during early 1990s, the services were expanded to other districts of Karnataka. AWAKE’s contribution to the empowerment of rural women has been recognized internationally.

AWAKE’s services to members evolved with growing technology trends and thus enabled members to match with the pace of the industrial growth.