Naayika

Based on his interactions with people from various sections of the society on how did they navigate the process of raising finance from the public and private sector, Arsh could clearly see that access to finance was glaringly difficult for women entrepreneurs. And that was what made him research the options that were out there for women to borrow or raise money to start or run their business. The information that was available was immense as many Government and private entities and banks are running women-specific schemes, but because of its scattered nature, the confusion of it all could baffle anyone! Arsh realized that what was needed was a common platform where anyone could get clear replies to their queries, as it is extremely frustrating for a simple person to go through multiple sites of different lending institutions to dig out relevant details. Arsh used AI (Artificial Intelligence) to collate data from a large number of existing schemes of all major lending players after a lot of research. He then proceeded to put this in a Chatbot format for easier communication of users. That’s how the Chatbot- “Naayika” was born. “Naayika” is the Hindi word for Heroine, which means a girl or woman who is admired by many people for doing something brave or good. Through this Chatbot, he wishes to empower every woman to be her own heroine. Though happy with a product in hand at such a young age, Arsh acknowledges that the journey has just begun. He has a vision to make the information reach every nook and corner of the country, in the local language of the people there. Along with loans related schemes, Arsh wishes to expand the bot to include funds, equity investments, convertible debentures and all other forms of capital that can be made available to women entrepreneurs.