Women on Wings business partner Rangsutra Crafts was one of the five India-based social companies which participated in the 13th annual Global Social Benefit Institute Accelerator program in Santa Clara, California, USA.
Mentoring from USA to create an impact in India
Santa Clara University hosted the event last August, highlighting 10 months of training and mentoring a total of 15 global social entrepreneurs who are seeking to reach much larger numbers of customers and beneficiaries. The program had more than 55 Silicon Valley mentors who have been working online with this year’s batch of global entrepreneurs since early on in 2015. They spent their time in Silicon Valley going over the likes of business strategy and impact metrics. Among the mentors were former CEO’s, venture capitalists, finance, distribution and supply chain experts; specialists in solar and renewable energy, as well as startup veterans.
Rural Indian products go global
Rangsutra Crafts provides a trustworthy platform, access and exposure to a market of 3,000 rural artisans and farmers, living in remote Indian villages. There are 1,700 shareholders of the company, of which 70% are women. Rangsutra and IKEA, world’s largest home furnishing retailer, work on co-creating a collection of home furnishings, which are being handmade by women in and around Varanasi. Since May 2015, this limited edition of home furnishings found its way to IKEA customers in a selected number of stores in Europe.
