In a good week, he takes three flights. A lot of his ideas come to him when he is up in the air -- 37,000 feet or so -- spending time with himself and not rushing in and out of meetings.
The new generation and its hunger to experiment and do more drive him. He is open to concepts that question the status quo and think 'scale.' Enter Secretary (DIPP) Amitabh Kant, who is in Mumbai and we are discussing the role women can play in business, using digital platforms to create real economic value.
At the heart of our discussion is the enormous amount of work women are doing in the startup world. "India can grow at over 10-11% if we include women in the economic process," he asserts, somewhat surprising me with his passionate belief that women are a big part of Make in India. Kant stresses on the need to use their viral energy to build new businesses – from traditional industry to startups.
We are in conversation over dinner and the IIT-Mumbai director is amongst our company, which makes this discussion even more interesting with a mild dose of statistics. The IIT boss reveals that women participation has almost doubled at their institutions and that one out of every four students at IIT joins a startup. And that includes women studying there. Women in India are driving the digital revolution with startups in ecommerce, content, coding, crowdsourcing and more. The flexibility to work from home or be the master of your business and self is infectious and driving them towards exploring entrepreneurship. Additionally, many of these women have displayed a discerning business acumen driven by profitability and new age organizational setups.
"Women entrepreneurs have an edge over male entrepreneurs." Kant insisted that this is going to radically change the story of the country's future and its approach to creating economic value. "They will outperform for several valid reasons. Women leaders in India have a better feel of the household spending patterns. They understand consumer perspective better. They have a way of building trust with customers, shareholders, etc. Also, there is a great level of diversity when women occupy top positions."
India has seen strong women leadership emerge in its banking sector. However, the same doesn't hold through the ranks. We are 113th among 135 nations in terms of gender balance at the workplace, a figure that drastically needs to improve. Kant bets on using the internet and digital opportunity to change this ranking. "To my mind, India is uniquely placed because we have 950 million mobiles. And therefore, for a woman -- whether she is living in a district in UP, Bihar or Maharashtra -- it doesn't matter. She can be an entrepreneur." India could transform its growth story affirms Kant as he says, "The single most important pursuit should be growth. And that is not possible if we are not able to unleash women power of this country and their entrepreneurial spirit. And if 634 million women become entrepreneur, we can grow at 11-12% in our economy."
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 "DIPP Secretary Amitabh Kant")
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