WE HUB: Where women work wonders
She is the kind of leader who leads with both heart and resolve, proving that true power lies in lifting others as you rise. A quiet force of determination, Sita Pallacholla blends strength with empathy. As the CEO of WE HUB — India's first and only state-led incubator for women entrepreneurs — she doesn't just break barriers, but builds pathways for others to follow. In an insightful conversation with CE, she reveals what WE HUB is doing for urban, rural, and tribal women, apart from giving much-needed entrepreneurship tips.
Excerpts
What inspired you to champion the cause of women entrepreneurs?
My journey began in the trenches of entrepreneurship, where I learned the challenges of building from scratch and saw how unforgiving the system can be, especially for women.
In 2011, after moving to Singapore, I connected with women leaders globally. Despite different geographies, the same roadblocks emerged — women were navigating a landscape not designed for them.
In 2014, I launched The Angel Summit, a network bringing together women from various sectors. These conversations led to real outcomes: gender-forward policies, women-led incubators, and inclusive economic pathways.
Today, I work at the intersection of technology, gender, and inclusive economics, building scalable systems to support women-led businesses, especially in emerging markets. At WE Hub, my mission is to ensure women not only enter the room but shape it.
Can you highlight a few ongoing programmes catering to women in urban, rural, and tribal areas?
At WE HUB, we don't believe a one-size-fits-all approach works when you're building for the next generation of women entrepreneurs and leaders.
In the urban vertical, our work spans across education, early-stage entrepreneurship, and scale-up journeys. Three core programmes anchor this vertical:
WE Enable: Focused on young women in colleges, this programme is about planting the seed early — building entrepreneurial thinking, industry exposure, and leadership skills to create career-ready women who don't just seek jobs, but create them.
WE Engage: This is our flagship entrepreneurship programme, structured to meet women where they are in their startup journey.
WE Elevate: This programme caters to growth-stage founders and MSMEs — providing targeted interventions, access to markets, mentors, and institutional investors. It's designed to support entrepreneurs ready to move from survival to scale.
Our Social Impact & Entrepreneurship (SIE) vertical recognises that women in Tier-2, Tier-3, and tribal regions have different starting points. Here, we design programmes supporting women-led businesses across the entire entrepreneurial life cycle, from ideation to scale-up:
WE Reach: A three-month pre-incubation programme providing skills in business management, financial, and digital literacy, concluding with Udyam registration support.
Project Inclusion: A six-month incubation programme offering expert sessions, branding, financial linkages, and business registration support for MSMEs.
WE Leads: A 10-month acceleration programme for growth-stage women-led MSMEs, focusing on revenue growth, market diversification, and national and international expansion.
WE HUB is also setting up district-level Women Centres of Excellence (WCEs). The proposed districts are: Warangal, Hanumakonda, Peddapalli, and Nalgonda. These centres will serve as local hubs for empowering women by offering skill development training, entrepreneurial capacity building, and manufacturing support across various sectors.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India.com
an hour ago
- India.com
World's richest man ever existed on Earth was much wealthier than Mukesh Ambani, Adani, Musk, Ratan Tata, Gates combines; his name was…, travelled Mecca with gold worth…
While today's billionaires are breaking records, none have ever compared to the unimaginable wealth of Mansa Musa, a 14th-century king of the Mali Empire. He is known by most historians as 'the richest man of all time,' whose wealth would be about $500 billion (₹43.7 trillion) when calculated to current value. The only reason his wealth can even be estimated is that it was so vast and widespread that most historians believe there were no means of calculating it accurately. This makes him a financial imperishable legend, one that we won't come close to in the modern-day world of billionaires. Mansa Musa ruled the Mali Empire between the years 1312 and 1337 CE. Under his reign, the Mali Empire attained perhaps its greatest fortune, becoming one of the wealthiest times and places in Africa. His wealth came in large part from the abundant gold and salt mines Mali possessed at this time. Mali was one of the world's primary sources gold at the time. As of that time, Mansa Musa also derived riches through the trade of ivory, slaves and any other valuable item he could sell; he built his empire to be one of the powers of Medieval world economy.' Mansa Musa's enormous wealth was not the only reason for his legendary status—it was how he expressed that wealth that excited the world. In 1324, he undertook a famous pilgrimage to Mecca that would become a significant historical moment. From the accounts of him in the pamphlets that came to be written, Mansa Musa embarked on his pilgrimage with thousands of people of his royal entourage—people such as servants, soldiers, and in addition he brought with him dozens of camels, each laden with gold of about 136 kg. As he passed through cities like Cairo, he gave away enough gold as a donation to cause inflation in the cities and disrupted the economy for years. Mansa Musa's fame quickly spread, especially to the courts of kingdoms in Europe and Asia. Kings and emperors all over the world were eager to be in his good graces and wanted have an opportunity to receive a share of his wealth and massive generosity. Indeed, even after he died in 1337, stories would echo their way across continents of Mansa Musa, as the one of the richest men in the world.
Hans India
a day ago
- Hans India
ZeroHarm Eyes Rs 150 Crore Milestone by FY 2025 -'26, Accelerates Global Expansion into GCC
ZeroHarm Sciences, India's pioneering clean-label nutraceutical company, is set to accelerate its global footprint with a focused expansion into the GCC markets, including the UAE and the broader Middle East. Following a remarkable 10× revenue growth over the past two years and operating at a healthy ~20% EBITDA margin, the company closed the last fiscal year with 71 crore in gross revenue with an exit ARR of 90 crores. In the current fiscal, ZeroHarm is aiming for ₹150 crore in gross revenue, driven by strong domestic and global momentum and increasing traction in the United States, which now contributes nearly 30% of its overall revenue. At the heart of ZeroHarm's global success is its patented ZeroHarm BioEnhance platform, a pharma-grade nanotechnology that encapsulates plant-based actives at the nanoscale, dramatically enhancing their bioavailability by up to 5×, ensuring faster onset, precise dosing, and residue-free delivery. This breakthrough, backed by granted patents and deep R&D, makes ZeroHarm the first Indian company to bring pharmaceutical nanotech into nutraceuticals at scale. ZeroHarm's US FDA, CE, and ISO-certified formulations are backed by government-led clinical trials, with documented claims for 15 products, setting it apart in a market rife with unverified health claims. Today, the company offers over 70 targeted, condition-specific products spanning diabetes, arthritis, PCOS, liver and kidney health, immunity, and oncology support, with over million units sold across India to date. Backed by a fully owned, nanotech-enabled manufacturing facility, ZeroHarm can produce up to ₹250 crore worth of finished goods annually, making it one of the few Indian nutraceutical brands with true end-to-end production capabilities. To support its international expansion, ZeroHarm has acquired a dedicated manufacturing and R&D facility in the United States, enhancing local supply chain efficiency, fast-tracking formulation innovation, and enabling closer clinical and regulatory collaborations in key global markets. The U.S. infrastructure also gives ZeroHarm a significant strategic edge in developed markets, where stringent compliance standards often limit entry for Indian nutraceutical brands reliant on contract manufacturing. 'The global nutraceutical market is shifting, consumers are demanding not just clean labels, but clinical credibility. At ZeroHarm, we've combined deep R&D with pharma-grade nanotechnology to raise the bar for efficacy, safety, and transparency in preventive wellness. Our entry into the GCC is a natural extension of the trust we've built in India and the U.S., and a significant step toward making evidence-backed, plant-based therapeutics accessible to global consumers,' said Sachin Darbarwar, Founder & CEO, ZeroHarm Sciences. With distribution agreements and regulatory filings already underway, the company will also launch in the UK aside from the GCC markets by Q3 2025, introducing its clinically tested product lines via pharmacies, e-commerce platforms, and integrative practitioner networks.
The Hindu
a day ago
- The Hindu
WE Hub to handhold women entrepreneurs from smaller towns of Telangana
Telangana government's WE Hub has launched a programme to give wings to entrepreneurial potential among women from tier 2 and 3 regions of the State. The first two cohorts, comprising 120 aspiring women entrepreneurs selected through district-level bootcamps, of the WE Reach programme were launched by Hyderabad collector Hari Chandana Dasari. WE Reach will provide comprehensive, end-to-end support to women at the ideation stage, helping them move towards establishing sustainable businesses, WE Hub said in a release. Capacity building is at the heart of initiative and it is to be achieved through inculcating business skills, financial and digital literacy awareness creation, mentorship, familiarisation visits to MSME enterprises. Assistance to set up units also figures in the programme to equip participants with requisite tools to start and scale their enterprises. 'Empowering women entrepreneurs at the grassroots is crucial for inclusive development. Programmes like WE Reach not only create economic opportunities for women but also drive long-term social transformation in our communities,' Ms. Chandana said. WE Reach is a significant step towards inclusive growth and equitable access to entrepreneurial opportunities, WE Hub CEO Sita Pallacholla said, adding that the women entrepreneurs are not only stepping into the world of business but are also on the path to economic empowerment and formalising their business ventures.
