Womanifest change at SheSparks; Leveraging tech to make bottled water affordable

It’s time for SheSparks 2024!

The mission? To inspire action through deliberations, discussions, powerful storytelling and pledges to help women grow in every sphere of life. Catch all the action here.

Elsewhere, women are also travelling more, boosting the sector's revenue. 

According to an Airbnb report, 30% of Indian women guests travelled solo in 2023. Also, women constitute nearly one-third of India's hosting community on the homestay portal, and collectively earned around Rs 200 crore in 2023.

In other news, after the RBI imposed restrictions on JM Financial’s financing business, the investment banking firm asserted that there were "no material deficiencies" in its loan sanctioning process and that its IPO financing product is “short term and self-liquidating in nature.”

The company’s shares closed 10.42% lower on the NSE on Wednesday.

Speaking of the RBI, Governor Shaktikanta Das assured that 80-85% of Paytm wallet users will not face any disruption because of regulatory actions as their wallets are linked to other banks. He also ruled out any further extension to the March 15 deadline for Paytm Payments Bank to cease most of its operations. 

However, he assured that the central bank has nothing against fintechs and only wants them to obey rules.

Lastly, a look into the origins of the humble lentil.

Did you know that humans have been cultivating lentils for the past 10,000 years?

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Meet champions of change at SheSparks
• Leveraging tech to make bottled water affordable
• Bringing women into ancient rural folk art

Here’s your trivia for today: The Mekong River Delta is located in which country?

SheSparks

Meet champions of change at SheSparks

SheSparks is back in a bigger, better, and bolder format to inspire people to action through deliberations, discussions, powerful storytelling and pledges to help women grow in every sphere of life.

Join us today at the Royal Orchid Hotel, Bengaluru, as YourStory and HerStory's flagship event sees women technologists, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and change-makers come together to share stories of their extraordinary journeys.  

Speaker line-up:

• The day will kickstart with an insightful session with Lingraju Sawkar, President Kyndryl India who will highlight the importance of increasing female representation in the workforce. 
• Priyanka Gill, Venture Partner, Kalaari Capital and Group Co-founder, The Good Glamm Group will talk about disrupting a competitive market and how women have emerged as key drivers in the D2C sector. 
• NIRMAI Health Analytix' Geetha Manjunath, Gynoveda's Rachana Gupta, MenoVeda's Tamanna Singh, and FemTech India's Navneet Kaur will discuss how femtech is focusing on gender-specific healthcare.

<Funding Alert>

Startup: IDfy

Amount: $27M

Round: Equity

Startup: Rozana.in

Amount: $22.5M

Round: Series A

Startup: Louisa AI 

Amount: $5M

Round: Seed

Startup

Leveraging tech to make bottled water affordable

Amitt A and Kashiish Nenwani set out to solve a critical issue—access to safe drinking water. They founded Wahter in 2023 with the aim to sell water for as low as Rs 2 per 500 ml bottle. It is able to do that by partnering with advertisers.

Business model:

• The Gurugram-based packaged water startup allocates 80% of its label space to partnering brands and enables advertisers to design and customise labels on their own. 
• Wahter has developed an app, which it says, enables advertisers to place orders, upload brand designs, and visualise final products in a 360° angle.
• Wahter has partnered with Scrapbuddy, a PET recycling innovator, to recycle 10 million PET bottles in Delhi-NCR over three months, transforming waste into valuable products like fabrics and paver blocks.

Culture

Bringing women into ancient rural folk art

Kattaikkuttu Sangam is dedicated to keeping the rich performing art tradition of Kattaikkuttu alive and thriving among the younger generation. With the rural folk art’s association with oppressed castes and the stigma against women inherent in the practice, the group was founded to unite performers and provide a platform for them to discuss and collaborate.  

“We always saw Kattaikkuttu as a performing art tradition that deserves to be learned, irrespective of gender and caste,” theatre scholar Hanne M de Bruin tells SocialStory.

Breaking barriers:

• Kattaikkuttu Sangam is the first and only institution in the country to train women in the art form. Donations and local performances are sources of funding that help with education and shows. 
• "Kattaikkuttu is about body movement, body language, dialogue...We wanted to show that this can be done by women artists as well, and through different kinds of stories and presentation,” de Bruin adds. 
• “There are multiple myths we are breaking. One, that Kattauikkuttu performers are uneducated and ungraceful, and the other, that women from ‘decent’ households don’t participate in this tradition," says performer Thilagavathi Palani.

News & updates

• Record high: Bitcoin rallied again on Wednesday in volatile trade, while Ether jumped almost 10% as crypto mania continued to sweep through the investment community. Bitcoin rose by as much as 6.8% to a session high of $67,645, after having dropped 6% on Tuesday from an earlier record high above $69,000.
• Ice-free Arctic: The Arctic could have summer days with practically no sea ice within the next decade due to emissions from burning fossil fuels, a study has found.
• Etihad IPO: Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways is gearing up for a potential initial public offering after increasing revenue in 2023 on the back of a 40% boost in passenger numbers. Talk of an IPO has been swirling after it was reported that ADQ, the Abu Dhabi-based investment company that owns Etihad Airways, was in discussions with banks.

The Mekong River Delta is located in which country?

Answer: Vietnam

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