 very good afternoon to all of you and I'm sure you know. So what they say today in the entrepreneurial world is that today if you really want to succeed as an entrepreneur and you really want to be part of the change that is happening in the world, then you need to hang around with young people. So we've got Navya Naveeli Nanda here today, a huge round of applause to her. So the next-gen entrepreneur and you know, she's doing such remarkable work in terms of helping women and you know, carving out her own space in terms of building her own entrepreneurial venture. But at the same time, she's also building a lot of opportunities for other women entrepreneurs too. So welcome to the entrepreneur 2022 Navya. Thank you so much. We're delighted to have you here. So you know, of course, you know, we've seen you out there all the time, but we'd love to know a little more about your entrepreneurial journey. What made you start into the ventures and you know, project, Navya Naveeli, you're doing so many things that would help the women community. What got you hooked to this? Pursi, thank you so much for having me here. It's my first time being here at Entrepreneurial. So really, really grateful for you to call me here. This will be a slightly long answer, so please bear with me. I think when you ask about, you know, where it started from, I've actually grown up in a family. My dad's side of the family is, you know, full of entrepreneurs. The women in my family have also been entrepreneurs for years and years. So I think that's probably the gene that's more inherent in me, you know, unlike what most people assumed or believed. And I think that's where I really got the motivation to want to become an entrepreneur, but at no point did I expect during my education that I would start a company one day. And I think most founders probably have a similar experience. You come across a problem and then, you know, you want to solve it immediately. And that was the start of ARA Health, which is my startup. It's a women's healthcare platform co-founded by me and Malika Sani. She's my co-founder. And ARA actually was founded during the pandemic and it actually began because of a conversation that I had with an 11-year-old girl and I'd love to share it with everyone. So I happened to talk to a girl of 11 years old. She was in school and we were talking about menstrual hygiene and periods. Another topic that's very stigmatized and taboo in our country still. And she told me that when she got her first period, she was really confused that her blood was red because she thought it would be blue because that's what you see in commercials for sanitary pads on TV. And that's when we realized that there clearly is a very, very big gap in how we communicate about women's bodies and especially about women's health. And that was really the problem that we tried to solve with ARA. So at ARA Health, we have conversations about everything from menopause to periods to sexual health in a transparent manner so that no girl today in this country would ever have a misconception about her body. No, absolutely. And I think it's one taboo that somebody needed to break and I'm so glad that you're doing it out there. And of course, you have the right social presence and the fact that you're driving it, you'll be able to do so much good for the women in the society. So, obviously, because you've touched a topic and you're already working on an area which is, as you yourself say, to some extent taboo and there are certain stratas of Staiti who will still not go out and openly talk about it. So when you're building a team and when you're sort of getting people together to work with you in ARA Health, what kind of people do you select? What kind of culture are you working on in the organization? And how are you getting that sort of say the like-minded people together to come with you and your co-founder in ARA Health? So, I mean, I think since I've been working for two and a half years, I really feel that the workplace has changed, we're in a completely different generation and I really believe that the skill set that we were seeking as employers maybe 10, 15 years ago has changed also. Today, I'm not looking at a CV and thinking, oh, this person went to this university or had these many years of experience. I'm looking at real-life experience. I'm trying to understand whether that person can connect with the problem that I'm trying to solve and whether that person is passionate enough to want to solve it. So when I'm trying to build a culture at my startup and I say this to a lot of other founders as well, is I'm looking for 21st century workplace skills so things like emotional intelligence and creative thinking, teamwork. I think these are skills that to me are far more important than the kind of degree that you have and the amount of experience. So my team is, you know, it ranges from the age of 18 to 50 and we don't hire somebody based on, you know, the amount of work they've done in the past but more so because of the passion and experience that they've had in life. So you know, you're a geek by education so you've studied technology and here you are working on a cause for women. So how are you sort of combining these both worlds together? How are you bringing the technology to make sure that, you know, it's working in your venture also and going forward out there for women? So it depends who you ask. If you ask my mother, she thinks technology is a curse but I think it's a boon because I think that it's enabled me to do a lot with my company and also the causes that I believe in and Ara actually gained its momentum because of technology, because of the use of social media and the way that we utilized it and I feel that with anything there is a balance and you have to maintain that balance because it can tip at any point but for us, like you asked how we connected the two was that typically social media was not used as a platform to discuss women's health issues and we felt that if we normalize these conversations on such a large platform like Instagram or Facebook then it automatically might help in changing the way that people think and look at these topics. These are not conversations that only need to be had behind closed doors. These are conversations we can have on a stage like this or at home it can happen on social media and I think that's how we really connected the two. And you know, how do you sort of, so you know, the good and the bad part about social media is it all comes together and then when you've picked up a subject which is so sensitive in some matters, how do you sort of manage it? How do you sort of make sure that the good voice comes out and somehow the bad voice, you know, does not overpower the good voice that needs to go out for the purpose? I think obviously that is a good and bad in everything that you do, whether it's women's health or any other business for that matter and I think for us, it was just important to stay authentic and we personally actually use social media to talk about these things. It's not that, you know, we're doing it for the sake of just promoting the business. It's something that I really believe in personally and you know, if you follow my pages, it's something that I continuously like to talk about. So I think if you're authentic to the platform and to the cause, the bad gets drowned out automatically. It's not something that you have to actively try to control. Sure. And you know, another important aspect today is you know, getting women into business and I think you're working on that side too to help them achieve their financial independence, to help them see that you know, whatever venture it is that they either want to do or they want to be part of you helping them out there. So what exactly are you sort of doing within Project Naveeli to encourage them? So we have a community that we began last year. It's called Entrepreneurinary and we put a lot of effort into the name so I hope everybody understood the pun. But this is a community. We have 20,000 women entrepreneurs today and by entrepreneurs, I don't mean, you know, just women who are in suits and have offices but these are housewives. We have women from rural areas, from urban areas. And something interesting that my nanny told me a long time back is that women are born entrepreneurs because women run the houses exactly like how we run businesses. If you see our moms, they are managing the accounts of a house. They are handling the entire family which is equivalent to managing a team. And so you know, we wanted women to realize that they inherently have entrepreneurship qualities and that's what we focus on at Entrepreneurinary along with that we also give them mentorship and access to funding so that they can grow and scale their businesses. And more than that, I think it's the community because when I started out, I felt pretty lonely because I didn't know a lot of other female founders but today I'm proud to say that we have 20,000 of them in this community and I hope that it continues to grow and that women start businesses because like you mentioned, I think financial independence and security is something that gives you a lot of confidence and I think every woman deserves to feel confident. Yeah, totally. And I think it's so important for women to be financially independent today regardless of whether they are married or they are part of a family culture but I think each person has to be financially independent. So I think that's a great cause that you're promoting and just the fact that it's awareness needs to be so importantly out there whatever you'll do will help the women community to grow further and to think more about it. So you're also doing a podcast recently so tell us a little more about it which is about to come out and what exactly are you planning to achieve through it? So the podcast is called What the Hell Navya and this phrase was coined because my mom says it to me at least 10 times a day so we decided to name the podcast that and it's me, my mom and my nanny as hosts of the podcast together. It's out on 24th September and I think the aim behind it was to have three generations of women from the same family and we tackle different topics in every episode so we've spoken about things like financial independence, healthcare, relationships, working women and I think for me it was a great learning experience to hear from my nanny who was from a completely different generation you know what her work life had been like and what it was like being a woman back then so I hope that when people hear it they get three different perspectives and probably maybe also see themselves sitting in their living room with their nanny and their mom having similar conversations so yeah that's basically the idea behind the podcast and we hope that everybody enjoys it. No good luck with that and you know so if we were to know on the lighter side of your life what is it that you do when you're not working what is it that you enjoy doing and you know who is, I mean you have such a great family, iconic family that you come from so who has the biggest influence on you? When I'm not working I read a lot, I love reading I actually have a book club if there are any readers out here please join, I think that people don't read enough and it's one of my favorite things to do so when I'm not working I'm reading and I think yes like you mentioned that there's no lack of inspiration in the family but I'm extremely close to my nanny and she's somebody that I've always looked up to she's a very strong opinionated woman but I think she doesn't shy away from voicing her opinions and I hope to be exactly like that one day so she's definitely somebody I'm closest to. Okay, so we'd also take a few questions from the audience if somebody would like to ask Navya something about her work, about her entrepreneurial journey we would be happy to take some questions from the, yeah sir, if you would like to. I can't see anything. Can we, okay, I'll just give you my mic if there's not one around. Hi Navya, Pranav Mehta this side from Caffeina Coffee firstly kudos to you for the kind of work that you're doing when it comes to women empowerment and the women health. My question here being a very simple fact that once you start off with something as pure as you could say focused towards the cause that you're working to, how do you plan on managing the fiduciary as well as the moral responsibility as the business grows? Like I know for a fact that when the business starts to scale up, you know the moral responsibility tends to take a backseat at times. So how do you plan on doing that? Like inculcating the same feeling in other 20,000 females that are part of your consortium. So at Ara we have three very strong pillars the first is content, community and commerce. So the commerce side of it is purely the products. So the core and the heart of the business which is the education and awareness is always and will always be completely free of cost. We don't monetize on the content, we don't monetize on the community. So I think that the purity of what you're talking about still retains there in the sense that these are things that we wouldn't ever charge our customers for and till date we don't and it's been two years of that and as the community grows that's also not something that we ever intend to monetize on. So I think for us it was important like you mentioned rightfully to keep the morality of the business alive at the same time. So yeah, that's how we've been able to do it. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. So. Oh, hi. So of course you're extremely inspiring. We all know the influential background that you come from and it is often assumed that for people like you it is a cakewalk. Things just pan out but I think you would know that it's not true. So I would like to ask what's your opinion on that and secondly if the fact that your background is such has ever backfired for you and how have you managed such a situation? I think when you talk about it being a cakewalk I mean I'm not gonna say that it was easy but I would say that I've been grateful enough to be given a lot of opportunities most people wouldn't have and I think for me it was important to use those opportunities responsibly and I hope that I'm doing that and I hope I'm able to do that and when you talk about the background I think of course it's a tough one. You come with a very, very big legacy that you have to live up to and follow but I'd always like to believe that I'm sitting here today because of who I am and the work that I've done and I've always believed in wanting to build my own name and my own identity so that one day my family can be as proud of me as I am of them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much Navya. Thank you. Thank you so much Navya. This was really helpful and I think you're right to say that you know it's never a cakewalk when you're in business something can get you there but you really have to pull it out all yourself to take it through. So you know you said that you're an avid reader so any inspirational thing that you've read recently which you can share with everyone. I was talking about this with you earlier but I read this book called Invisible Women which was really interesting so I'd advise not just the women but the men in this room to read it as well. It's a really good book. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us here today.