Australian female entrepreneurs working with cyber and critical technology are being promised help expanding their businesses into India via a new Australia-India exchange program.
The CyberTech Women Entrepreneur program is run by accelerator inQ Innovation Global and Indian female start-up incubator, Women Entrepreneur Hub (WEHub). It also has the support of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Government of Telangana, India.
Six Australian women will be hosted at the WEHub campus in Hyderabad, India, and six women from India will be hosted by inQ Innovation at the Sydney Startup Hub.
The six-week program includes workshops and one-on-one mentoring to help the participants pitch to investors. Applications close at the end of September 2022.
“The aim of this exchange program is to facilitate market access, giving entrepreneurs understanding of either of the markets, “inQ Innovation Global chief executive and founder Irfan Malik told CRN Australia.
“The Australian women entrepreneurs learn how to scale into the Indian market, how their product or solution will be launched successfully to see growth.”
“Similarly, for Indian start-ups, we believe Australia is a great Western market where we again provide market access pathways and get the right partners to grow in the Australian market,” he added.
The initial “focus is Australia India bilateral engagement, but the same start-ups will be supported ongoing to be launched into other markets,” such as “the Middle East and Southeast Asia,” Malik said.
“We also align the exchange to some key events that are happening in their respective markets so that [candidates] can connect with potential partners, investors and market influencers in person,” she said.
“From an Australia India perspective, this is one of the first programs focused on women entrepreneurs in these sectors.”
The program will also support participants with “financial grants to launch and accelerate their businesses,” said WEHub chief executive Deepthi Ravula.
Entries have been received from women working with artificial intelligence, blockchain, quantum computing, next generation telecommunications, internet of things, synthetic biology, genomics and genetic engineering, low emission alternative fuels, autonomous vehicles, drones, swarming and collaborative robotics, and big data.
India and Australia “have a key role to play”
The exchange program follows the signing of an Australia-India free trade agreement earlier this year, and is part of ongoing efforts by Australian and India to work more closely on technology issues.
The $12.7 million Australia-India Bilateral Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership (AICCTP) initiative, which funds the exchange program, recognises that India and Australia “have a key role to play in contributing to the global development of critical and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, next generation telecommunications (such as 5G and 6G), Internet of Things, quantum computing, synthetic biology, blockchain and big data.”
In July this year, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCL and Australia’s CyberCX were among the organisations represented at the first meeting in Canberra of an Australia-India Joint Working Group on Information Communications Technologies. The group discussed innovation and shared challenges in network security.
“India is one of those key markets”
One of the candidates for the CyberTech Women Entrepreneur program is Melissa Wong, co-founder of marketing intelligence start-up Silfra.
“What really attracted me to this program is knowing that there’s support there,” Wong told CRN Australia.
“You’ve got some really incredible businesses and sponsors that are backing female founders, and that itself is a great opportunity for us to learn, but also to have opportunities to open doors and build relationships.”
“I love the fact that it is a six-week immersive program,” she added, “I think as a start-up founder there’s a lot that I don’t know so it’s a new journey for me.”
Wong saw benefit in access to “incredible experts in Australia but also in India through the partnership. When it comes to solving global problems, India is one of those key markets, so this opportunity is valuable.”
“There are great opportunities globally for the problems I’m looking to solve,” said Wong, “and meeting other incredible women in India who are also embarking on a similar journey, I’d love to build long life friends.”
Women make up less than 25 per cent of the cybersecurity and critical technology workforce in Australia, according to PwC.
“For over a decade, start-ups, especially women entrepreneurs in tech, have expressed lack of opportunities and financial support to optimally scale-up their businesses globally," Ravula said.
The Australian Government’s Boosting Female Founders Initiative 2020 gave $63.8 million in grants to help female start-ups gain access to finances and scale into domestic and global markets.
Other programs aiming to support Australian female entrepreneurs include the NSW Government’s Female Founder Connect Pilot initiative, Federal Government-supported Future Female Entrepreneurs Program and Federal Government Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship grants program.
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