The Rise Of The Silent Mass

hspace="0" width="227" height="184">Case 1: When 32-year-old P Sudha''s husband

left her she had no place to go except her father''s. The sudden need to fend for herself

made her seek financial help from her ''appa''. She opted for self-employment scheme of

Orbit Infocom and today while sitting at home she has made a living for herself-doing

data-entry work for national project of computerization of the Case Laws and Acts,

contracted to Orbit. And her new support in life-computers.

Case 2: For the last 41

years Vasantha Chary has been a housewife and a mother of two children. Today she is an

entrepreneur in her own right. While she takes care of her family, she also runs First

Lady franchise and manages CyberFolks-an email-cum-Internet center exclusively for women.

And all this from her home. Better still, she is earning about Rs 2,500 per month, in less

than six months of her setting up these two centers, thanks to First Computers where she

underwent a training program for the First Lady course and franchise-ship.

width="312" height="156">Sudha and Chary''s case is not an isolated one. The two are

indicative of a trend which is being set in Chennai. A trend wherein the IT industry is

incorporating women in its fold. A trend which is the harbinger of equality, brought about

by the digital revolution. So much so, that, all of a sudden there appears to be a

paradigm shift-a shift towards the women segment. One which encompasses all from the

not-so-educated-and-low-profile women to the smart housewives to the creative and aspiring

young women and to the disabled, the industry has slots for all of them.

Treading The Untrodden....



At the outset, what is apparent is the focus on women for computer training. ''First Lady'',
''NetLady''...these are some of the ''ladies special courses'' being offered in Chennai. The

vast potential of the segment, has made many an institutes look at them more seriously. A

market research by First Computers indicated that women between 24-32 years of age account

for only 2 percent of the enrollments made in computer training institutes. This saw the

genesis of the First Lady concept. The survey also showed that housewives did not either

have enough time to attend computer schools or were not inclined to the idea of studying

with students younger to them. "This is when we decided to take computers to the

housewives and enter this potential market," admits Sanjay Bharadwaj, Country

Manager, First Lady.

First Lady-a concept introduced by First

Computers in Chennai last year, is a computer course-cum-computer home run by a woman for

other women in the neighborhood. It works on a franchise scheme, and requires a total

investment of Rs 1.5 lakh by each franchisee, spent toward infrastructure-PC, Internet

connection, and interiors. "With this, we believe that housewives can play a more

meaningful, creative, and constructive role as a wife, a mother, a home-manager...and even

as an entrepreneur or business-executive, in her own right, by learning computers,"

says S Ganesan, Executive Director, First Computers.

The course, divided into PC Start, PC

Perfect, PC Tutor, and PC Timeshare, is structured in such a way that the First Lady

trained directly by First Computers learns basic computer knowledge and applications of

the same for business. With the unprecedented success of First Lady in Chennai, the

company is all set to introduce this neighborhood concept in other metros in the country

in 1998.

Exuding New Confidence



Chary, one of the franchisees, who completed her course six months ago, today manages her
own First Lady center from home, in addition to running CyberFolks-an exclusive women''s

email and Internet center. Her interest developed when she was exposed to a PC that her

husband has bought for their home. Chary says, "I joined First Lady to acquire

knowledge in computers and do something of my own. I looked at a combination of education

and entrepreneurship skills. And I am happy that the purpose of taking up the course has

been served."

With a total investment of about Rs 2.5

lakh, Chary has kept one computer for First Lady and another for CyberFolks. While she

spends four hours of her day-time teaching different batches of women at First Lady, her

evenings are utilized at CyberFolks. Seven students have already passed the First Lady

course from her franchise while another 12 are presently undergoing training. In less than

six months, Chary has earned an average monthly income of Rs 1,500 from First Lady and

about Rs 1,000 from CyberFolks, started two months ago.

hspace="0" width="269" height="184">Having set up the necessary infrastructure, Chary is

planning other things such as hosting and designing web pages. She intends to create

theme-based web sites like on matchmaking and gradually enter the arena of ecommerce.

"This is just the beginning. I plan to do much more, and faster," says a

confident Chary. She also encourages her students to take up similar challenges and learn

to be on their own.

The potential of the women segment, not

only in terms of size, but also in creativity, is being utilized by Webwiz Software (I)-an

associate of Fintrack Systems Corp. of the US. The company recently launched ''NetLady'', a

one-month training program in web page designing exclusively for women. "We have come

out with this course for women as we believe that they are more artistically inclined and

suited for developing web pages," says B Nandakumar, Project Leader (Internet

Division), Webwiz. The company, which is in the process of developing Internet and

intranet solutions, will also absorb the best talent for its internal use.

However, L Balasubramanian, VP, NIIT, does

not agree that women should be a special segment at all. "At least we have never felt

the difference. We always had female students and faculty at our institutes, and there is

no need to target them." However, he feels that with the boom in the Home segment,

woman becomes the entry point. "In order to penetrate this segment, we have to target

not just her, but the entire family. And it was how the LEDA family club concept was

born," explains Balasubramanian.

However, can any talk on empowering women

leave a role model behind. S Vyjayanthi, Director of Vinzaa School of CAD is one such.

Vyjayanthi, who lends a helping hand to her husband at the Institute, has introduced two

new courses at the center meant exclusively for women. "We have devised two kinds of

courses through use of CAD-creative courses on interior decoration and fashion technology,

and the skill-level course on PCB designing," explains Vyjayanthi.

Opening New Vistas



R Tabassum, a product of Vinzaa School, is an example of a successful candidate who has
deployed IT in business. Tabassum has been running La Princess-a boutique in Chennai since

1991. Today, her shop is visited by film personalities and beauty queens such as former

Miss Universe Sushmita Sen, as it is the only computer-aided boutique in the city.

Earlier, Tabassum used to show her

customers model of a dress and allowed them to choose the fabric and incorporate the

changes they wanted. Although this way, she could satisfy 80 percent of her customers,

there were still 20 percent who were disappointed with the outcome. They felt that the

final product was different from the pattern they had in mind. "This set me thinking,

and I thought it would be nice if I could show them the dress, why even try it out on them

on a screen before I cut the fabric and thus turned La Princess to a computer-aided

fashion designing center," says Tabassum, thanking her training at Vinzaa School.

Today Tabassum, gets around 1,000 customers

and designs about 100 dresses on an average in a month. With increasing popularity, not

only are orders pouring in, but the shop is also attracting stars and models from across

the country.

If you thought only courses are targeted at

women, the answer is a big "No". Although, the industry is able to offer

placements to women belonging to different backgrounds, the nature of jobs offered seems

to be, to a large extent, type-cast or should one say women-oriented. Teaching,

traditionally associated with women, due to their temperament, is an area which provides

tremendous opportunities for women in IT too. Since the success of First Lady, exclusive

women-teaching faculty establishments are fast becoming a trend.

Futurekids, for instance. Futurekids is a

computer technology education provider for children in the age group of 4-16 worldover.

"Our teachers are certified by an international authority, and upgraded every six

months. And in such a scenario, we are sure that women are more competent than men in

teaching and understanding child psychology," explains Shailendra Babu of Futurekids

India. More than a career in computer teaching, what has emerged as a tremendous

opportunity is the concept of franchisees. Be it First Lady, Future Kids, or NIIT-LEDA,

the neighborhood concept is propelled by women. "It is for this very purpose that

woman have been chosen as a marketing vehicle for the LEDA concept," says

Balasubramanian.

Savitha Vishwanathan, a faculty member at

an NIIT-LEDA franchisee, admits that most women who join these centers do so in order to

catch up with the latest or help their families financially. "And in most of the

cases, it is the woman who is responsible for the family joining the club," she adds.

Since woman is the `decision-maker'' with regard to computer education and training, she is

attracting considerable attention. "As of now, the housewife is only a supplementary

market. But this segment will be activated with computers penetrating homes," says

Balasubramanian.

The concept of franchisees, like First

Lady, is driven not only by the attention IT companies are giving to women segment, but

also because of the interest and eagerness shown by women themselves. Again, the low

investment and financial viability of the entire project too has its role in inviting

takers belonging to the fairer sex. "Our center was established with just about an

investment of Rs 3.5 lakh. And in less than one year, we have 165 families who are

undergoing various courses," explains Viswanathan.

Similarly, Futurekids franchisee also

requires an investment of around Rs 20-25 lakh, including the rentals for the property.

Sudha Narayanan, a franchisee of Futurekids says, "With about 120 students in the

first year, we might be able to breakeven." And presently, not only is she employed

in her own way, but also has three staff members employed under her. "More than the

money, what these teachers gain is the international certification and technological

updation every six months," she adds.

hspace="0" width="266" height="217">Bhaskar adds that not these women don''t end as just

being teachers, they gradually scale different levels-from being a teacher to teaching

other teachers, to coordinating a center, to getting employment internationally across any

of the Futurekids schools, and finally to start their own franchisee. These teachers start

from anywhere between Rs 2,500 to Rs 6,500, before they going on to head different

positions. NIIT NIIT-LEDA requires about 85 families to make the project financially

viable. Every family in the club pays an annual membership fee of Rs 600 and pays about Rs

500 for each course they take up.

Taking On Their Own



An area where women have taken to IT in their own way is at the applications
level-creative work in fashion designing, web page designing, and CD-content development,

to name a few. Vinzaa CAD, for instance, also offers commercial advise on costumes. It

helps women customers choose a particular dress or a sari, after they view themselves on

the screen with it and check out if the color and pattern suits them.

Fifty-five year old Rathna Narasimaiah, who

did a computer course from NIIT-LEDA, is presently engaged in designing and other creative

work on the web. Another student of Vinzaa CAD, Sathya, has also runs a computer-aided

fashion technology unit in Salem, wherein she offers consultancy in dress designing as

well as teaches the course to others. Jayshree Raveendran, who runs Ability Foundation, a

trust for the disabled people, is using computers to help disabled students in the

application-based courses and help find a suitable employment for them. The first batch of

10 students, in the age group of 16 to 30, would soon find placements in banks, DTP units,

and software companies.

It is not always that IT companies target

niche segments such as women and family with a commercial motive. Many a times, it is the

desire to earn goodwill which makes these companies play a social role. First Computers,

for example, has designed and provided the application-based courseware for the disabled

on a voluntary basis to Raveendran. NIIT has been involved with Spastics Society of Tamil

Nadu (SPASTN) in developing a special education system called CATRED (Computer Aided

Training and Rehabilitation for the Disabled), alongwith ACCESS, another program on making

hardware adaptations to facilitate computer use.

Orbit Infocom has also given a new

direction to women by introducing a self-employment scheme. About 50 housewives have

benefitted from this scheme that involved them in the National project for Computerization

of Case Laws and Acts undertaken by Orbit. These women today have a regular source of

income and lead a dignified existence, once again thanks to computers.

The Indian woman has made her mark in a

number of fields like dance, celluloid, space, sports, and beauty worldover. Now is her

turn to prove herself on the technology front, and it looks like she is all set to conquer

the world of chips and circuits.

AKILA S,