INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY SPECIAL: WOMEN AND TECHNOLOGY - 2
e-Learning has proved to be an ideal, non-formal avenue for many women to  improve their professional skills
By Vishnu Anand
Bangalore, March 8 2017: A young woman named Mehvish Mushtaq Hakak has created a mobile app that solved a major challenge for inhabitants of the Kashmir valleyas well as tourists – finding listings of essential services. With this app, Mehvish became the first female app developer  from Kashmir.
Since 2013, the app – Dial Kashmir -- has  provided phone numbers, e-mail IDs and addresses of essential and commercial services in Kashmir. In addition to the directory feature, it also has other features like ‘find pin code’, ‘railway timings’, ‘list of holidays’, ‘prayer timings’ among others. The latest version of the app contains updated pin codes and holiday list for 2017, in addition to newer search features. 
A striking example of women entrepreneurship in tech, Mehvish was able to create Dial Kashmir only because she chose to embrace e-learning. She took up an Android development course with live, online learning provider Edureka and went on to successfully create the app.
For Edureka and the e-learning industry at large, Mehvish’s story remains an inspiring one.
Cut to  2017. Rupam Sri is currently working with one of the top Indian tech MNCs in Bangalore. She has 12 years of experience in manual testing and comes from a Java coding background. As technologies evolved, she felt the need to add automation testing in her resume. One of her friends introduced her to Edureka and she decided to learn a tool called Selenium WebDriver. Post the course, Rupam got a high-profile international automation testing prokject in her organization. Rupam credits the e-learning course for helping her ace interviews with her resource manager and the client interview, where she was able to impress with her real-world Selenium skills. Rupam now looks forward to a rewarding career in automation testing and is a true testimony of the fact that with the right kind of up-skilling, women can take the tech world by storm!

Not a  rosy picture
Last year saw an alarming trend with regard to participation of women as part of the active workforce in India. According to the Sixth Economic Census by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), only 14% of Most of these women-run companies are in the small-scale sector. The dismal number of women entrepreneurs in India stems from the fact that there is generally a decline in the number of women opting to be part of the global workforce. While there can be several reasons for this, it should be noted that skill gap is not one of them.
While women are compelled to take breaks in their careers – for reasons ranging from maternity to location changes – staying relevant in their careers in spite of a break, is no longer a challenge,thanks to so many online courses.
With the current trend of entrepreneurial technology start-ups mushrooming across the country, it is time to change the numbers! Even if the magic number of 14% increases even marginally, it can transform the game for women.