The team has now come together to present the ‘HerTech’, touted as the country’s first women-led hackathon, for Women’s Equality Day later this month. “It is a free event focusing on recruitment, giving college students and women who are looking to get back to work after a break to prove their strengths and access to recruitment in top companies. There will also be part-time and freelance opportunities on a project basis for women in tech,” said Jinal Patel, COO of WSquare. 

The teams will be women-led and present a business model and a prototype of the solution to the jury members. The problem statement will be focusing on a FinTech Product or an AI Solution that supports women entrepreneurs on three issues. 

“Access to finance: ease of access for women entrepreneurs and start-ups to government grants, crowdfunding, angel investors, etc. The second is Micro-Finance Management: a solution for home-based women entrepreneurs to store data about their resellers, resale value, and more that facilitates home entrepreneurs to efficiently understand their business,” said CEO Vandhana Ramanathan. 

“The third would be Access to Networks: a platform that collects data from digital channels to automatically update events across the city for networking and mentoring for women entrepreneurs,” she said. The top 25 teams will have to undergo an analytics and de-coding test along with a one-page plan of their idea and prototype. 

“Participants will then spend 24 hours on coding, validating their ideas, networking followed by a demo to a panel of VCs, entrepreneurs, and sponsors. A mentor from the business development side and a technology expert will be assigned to the teams,” said Jinal. 

The event is scheduled for August 25 and 26 (Women’s Equality Day) at PayPal India Development Centre in Chennai.