On the occasion of International Women’s Day i.e. on March 8, 2020, NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog in collaboration with United Nations (UN) in India has organized the 4th Edition of the Women Transforming India (WTI) Awards 2019 in New Delhi. The theme for WTI awards 2019 was “Women and Entrepreneurship”. The awards were conferred by Defence Minister of India (or Raksha Mantri), Rajnath Singh who was the chief guest of an event.
- WTI Awards 2019 received over 2,300 applications of which the Top 30 were shortlisted. Finally 15 WTA awards and 1 Jury award were presented during the occasion by Rajnath Singh.
Following is the table showing list of awardees.
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| Sr No | Awardee | Work Done by Awardee |
| 1 | Dr Praveen Nair (Jury Award) | Founder Trustee of Salaam Baalak Trust that has worked in rehabilitating over 81,000 destitute and homeless children. She received the Special Jury Award. |
| 2 | Ramya Venkataraman | Founder of Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA), which has created a certification framework that allows for assessing of teachers’ skills and competency. |
| 3 | Shilpi Kapoor | Founder of BarrierBreak, a company focused on the accessibility of technology for differently-abled persons. |
| 4 | Rinka Banerjee | Founder of Thinking Forks, a company with expertise in the food and nutrition industry which has allowed them to create products to combat acute malnutrition |
| 5 | Nidhi Pant | Head of Science for Society team, a food technology company selling dehydrated vegetable snacks. |
| 6 | Anupriya Balikai | Head of Spookfish Innovations, which has created a standard for products and ensure quality control for food packaging. |
| 7 | Kalpana Sankar | Through her organization Hand in Hand, she is empowering the impoverished women in India through capacity building and training. |
| 8 | Khushboo Jain | She has created ImpactGuru which is a crowdfunding platform that empowers individuals, NGOs and social enterprises, by helping them raise funds for healthcare, social, and personal needs, from family, friends as well as strangers. |
| 9 | Sneha Sundaram | She has developed Kutuki mobile app focuses on bridging the learning gap that exists in Indian pre-schools. |
| 10 | Jayanti Pradhan | She is agro-processor and farmer from Odisha who has been educating women in her community and equipping them with the tools and knowledge of mushroom farming. |
| 11 | Jugnu Jain | Founder and CSO, of Sapien Biosciences which is addressing the need for tissue-banks in India by successfully using medical waste to create medical innovations. |
| 12 | Pratyusha Pareddy | She has started NemoCare which aims to combat infant mortality and promote neonatal care. |
| 13 | Poonam Bir Kasturi | Founder of Daily Dump which is building products and services for decentralised waste management in homes, community offices and public spaces. |
| 14 | Ruchi Jain | She has launched Taru Naturals which focuses on sustainable agriculture and striving to empower a network of small-scale farmers. |
| 15 | Sujata Sahu | Her 17000 ft Foundation is a social enterprise focused on providing education and exposure to the communities in the most rural and isolated regions of Ladakh. |
| 16
| Dr. Priyanka Mokshmar
| Co-founder of Vaayu Home Appliances which provides economically affordable and environmentally feasible alternatives to traditional AC units across India. |
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Important Participants of the event: Ms. Debjani Ghosh, President, Nasscomm; Ms. Ani Choying Drolma, musician and women’s rights activist; and Ms. Chetna Gala Sinha, Founder and Chair, Mann Deshi Bank and Foundation.
About WTI:
Initiated in 2016 by NITI Aayog, in partnership with MyGov and the UN India, the award recognizes women who are providing innovative developmental solutions for the empowerment of nation through their businesses and enterprises. Since 2018, the Awards have been hosted under the aegis of NITI Aayog’s Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) with a special focus on entrepreneurship.
- WEP, launched in 2018, is a forum dedicated to educating, enabling and empowering women entrepreneurs and is premised on three pillars namely Iccha Shakti, Gyan Shakti and Karma Shakti.
