WEE are the
Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) Program.
GAME, as a backbone organisation, works with alliance partners to create scalable models for mass entrepreneurship. WEE is operating by collaborating with platform partners and community-based organisations to create scalable gender-intentional models and solutions.
Towards that end, our vision is to enable economic opportunities for 2.5 lakh women entrepreneurs across the digital platform economy, including rural e-commerce, social commerce, gig, and job tech, by 2025.
We are bringing in empowerment as both a process and an outcome by approaching the problem through the lens of a gender-intentionality framework.
Identifying to solve
India’s digital platform economy continues to expand inexorably and is projected to reach 2.35 crore by 2030¹. However, due to la ack of gender intentionality as a practice, gendered divisions persist and severely limit opportunities for women, which is disempowering. There are gaps in how platform work is perceived by both female platform workers themselves and societies more broadly (consciousness), as well as norms and exclusionary practices.
By referring to the Gender at Work framework that builds on Naila Kabeer’s gender theory drawn by Andrea Cornwall, Professor of Global Development and Anthropology at King’s College London, we will be able to assess these platforms for providing livelihoods as means for women empowerment, and gradually bridge these gaps towards economic empowerment of women.
¹Niti Aayog – India’s booming Gig & Platform Economy
Approach
The program approaches the issue in a very conscious and layered manner.
Conduct the diagnosis
Create a vision
Design and implement intervention
Assess change and adapt
Building Together
Towards change, WEE collaborates with private platform economy players across rural e-commerce, social commerce, gig, and job tech to design & implement gender responsive models and practices. On the other hand, our community partners mobilise, upskill, recruit, and on-board women to enable digital access.
Through our approach, we are aiming:
- to enable, elevate, and enrich women’s economic opportunities on the digital platform economy.
- foster gender-transformative policies with private sector partners.
- establish sustainable working models (scale & impact) that other players can replicate.
The Faces of WEE
Poulomi Pal
Vice President – Women Entrepreneurship & Lead - WEE
Poulomi is the anchor for Women Entrepreneurship Programs in the platform economy. She manages key programs with a focus on program design, impact assessment, and solution development. Her experience in the development sector spans over two decades particularly at the interfaces of gender, livelihoods, and financial inclusion (business development, designing and implementing large-scale livelihood programs & community-led initiatives) across sectoral categories.
Vanya Kaushik
Lead - Implementation
As WEE's Implementation Lead, Vanya connects our partners with the resources, knowledge, and networks they need to thrive. Her leadership unlocks their potential for transformative economic growth and innovation. Vanya brings 8+ years' experience in grassroots implementation, program strategy, and consulting. Starting as a Gandhi Fellow in rural Rajasthan, she scaled CSR projects nationwide, managing multi-stakeholder collaborations and impacting informal workers and nano-enterprises.
Samikhsya Nanda
Manager - Program
Samikhsya focuses on program design and implementation, overseeing pilots, supporting partners in execution, leading program communication & advocacy efforts, and contributing to research endeavours. As a Young India Fellow, she has worked with impact-based organisations in gender, education & sustainability space.
Poornima Menon
Manager - Program
Poornima is responsible for managing key implementation partners under rural commerce, gig and job tech. A dedicated development sector professional with over 6 years of experience, she has been working on gender issues and projects enabling the economic empowerment of women through access to finance and enterprise development. An India Fellow and One Future Fellow, Poornima pioneered the establishment of Kala Maitri, a women’s collective enterprise, empowering small-scale women entrepreneurs in Maheshwar, MP, through skill-building and access to markets.
Inisa Guha
Lead - Research, Data, and Documentation
Inisa leads research efforts for the WEE program, coordinating studies on women's experiences and the digital platform economy. Additionally, she manages outreach to relevant brands as part of WEE’s collaboration with Amazon. Inisa comes with 8 years of experience working as a researcher and consultant in the domains of gender, education and governance across research institutes and government organisations. She has worked with clients ranging from government ministries to multi-lateral organisations.
Rashika Chaurasia
Manager - Partner Engagement
Rashika coordinates partnership opportunities for platform partners and manages daily coordination of social media growth and engagement. With over 6 years of experience in the social development sector, she brings a myriad of experience across program management, team leadership, partnership building, and event organisation in education, infrastructure, livelihood, and CSR volunteer engagement activities.