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,