Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH implemented the “Economic Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs and Start-ups by Women” project on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in partnership with India’s Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MoSDE). This initiative, called “Her&Now,” aimed to support aspiring and existing women entrepreneurs in India through dedicated incubation and acceleration programs while improving the overall business environment for women-led enterprises.

As a key implementing partner, Dhriiti was responsible for executing Her&Now in the Northeast Region of India. At that time, the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Northeast India was virtually nonexistent, making our goal of training and incubating 250 women entrepreneurs seem almost impossible.

Drawing from our experiences with the We Can India! project, we understood the importance of proactive outreach. We launched an extensive publicity campaign utilizing radio, print advertisements, strategic partnerships, and viral WhatsApp messaging that successfully reached all eight Northeastern states.

Dhriiti and GIZ collaborated to develop a groundbreaking model specifically designed for women-centric incubation rather than generic business support. Our program included both incubation for very early-stage or idea-phase enterprises and acceleration for established businesses.

The first cohort began around October 2019 with kickoff camps and in-person sessions. When COVID-19 struck, we swiftly pivoted the entire program to an online format. Despite this challenge, the initial cohort created tremendous impact, transforming participants’ confidence and perspectives. We intentionally fostered a community of women entrepreneurs – a design element informed by our We Can India! learnings – using WhatsApp as a powerful community-building tool and organizing café meetups for informal networking.

By the second cohort, outreach was no longer necessary as word spread organically. Our promotional materials featured women entrepreneurs from each state, creating an authentic connection that generated numerous applications.

We invested heavily in creating and promoting role models through newspapers, films, and publications, including a cartoon novel titled “Women in Business.” These efforts aimed to provide positive examples for young girls in schools and colleges, ultimately cultivating a new generation of women entrepreneurs and transforming perceptions around women’s entrepreneurship.

The program’s most significant outputs included the formal and informal entrepreneurial communities we established. We formalized groups like the Women Entrepreneurs Network of Nagaland (WEN), which began with 45-50 members and has since mobilized over 800 additional women entrepreneurs. The Nagaland government recognized WEN’s impact by incorporating it into the governance structure of Startup Nagaland—a tremendous achievement for the program.

Her&Now fundamentally changed how women’s entrepreneurship in Northeast India was perceived. The program’s greatest legacy is the new generation of role models it created, contributing to a threefold increase in women entrepreneurs across the Northeastern states. We believe that anyone looking to work in this space in the Northeast today would need to study the Her&Now model.

Two important initiatives emerged from this project:

• WE Mentor Nagaland, which continues to be operated by WEN today.
• Wincubate Program, a curriculum for incubators working with women entrepreneurs. Rather than prescribing specific session content, Wincubate serves as a playbook for women’s incubation programs, addressing everything from outreach strategies to program design elements that should differ from traditional entrepreneurship programs. The key insight was that programs for women entrepreneurs require unique designs – not just adaptations of generic existing models.