A Celebration of Women™

is elated to Celebrate the Life of this woman that has helped thousands around the globe, honored by the Queen, holding awards from around the globe, she has devoted her life to bettering the lives of women and children inside the slums of India. Through applying her own skills, she is helping to create entrepreneurs build sustainable business by providing both through mentorship and the tools.

Join us as we Celebrate the Woman and the positive actions she offers to the less fortunate of our world,

bringing forth ‘Equality of Women Among Women’.

 
 
 
 

WOMAN of ACTION™

 

 

Sheetal Mehta Walsh

 
Sheetal runs Shanti’s day-to-day operations globally. With over 15 years experience working in technology, venture capital, social entrepreneurship and philanthropy she has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs around the world. In 2009, she decided to apply her skills to help entrepreneurs in Indian slums and villages to build sustainable businesses by providing mentoring, training, microfinance and promotion of health and well-being.

She is a spokesperson on the topic, having presented at Cambridge, LSE, Doha Forum, Big Society, House of Lords, TEDx and other prestigious forums.

She first went to India in 1996 to work at the SOS Children’s Villages in Bangalore.

Since then, she developed a passion to work in under resourced communities.

Based in London, Sheetal is a champion of microfinance both in developing and developed countries.

Sheetal is the founder of Kuuja.com (a new social enterprise that acts as a marketplace for microfinance recipients to sell their products and services online thereby scaling their businesses and becoming bankable), and Shanti Microfinance (a social enterprise and UK Charity that provides access to technology and capital for entrepreneurs in slums and villages in India).

A holistic approach to alleviating poverty in India through community mobilisation: focussing on health improvement, education, entrepreneurship and sustainable living.

Poor communities in India do not have access:

• To clean drinking water and sanitation
• To any credit or capital
• To training and literacy

Our goal is to alleviate poverty in the slums and villages of Gujarat (and Western India) by providing low-interest micro loans to the poor so they can build sustainable businesses. We work with federations (official communities) of women and men who share a common goal of wanting to become self-sufficient.

Together we implement training of hygiene, financial literacy, savings, entrepreneurship skills and mentoring to ensure sustainable businesses.
We call donations investments because when loans have been repaid, all monies are recycled to help create even more loans for more entrepreneurs.

We do this by focussing on:

• Water, Health, Sanitation: Alleviate illnesses such as malaria, dengue fever and construct eco-sanitation toilets
• Microfinance and livelihoods: Provide loans at a low interest rate all of which is recycled in the community
• Sustainable businesses: Enable artisans to sell their items online so they can scale their small businesses
• Entrepreneurship: Helping the poorest of the poor with a $30 investment

We provide low-interest micro loans to the poorest of the poor in slums and villages in Gujarat, India. Online investments for as little as $30 help poor entrepreneurs create new businesses, which in turn, help improve the living conditions for their families. We call donations investments because when loans have been repaid, all monies are recycled to help create even more loans for more entrepreneurs. By investing as little as $30, you help bring many entrepreneurs and families out of poverty over many years to come.

We provide mentoring, training, attention to health care issues and funds to build sustainable businesses.

How we are different to Kiva?

We are usually compared with Kiva, so the best way to explain what we do is to compare how we are different.

Kiva is not a Microfinance Institution. Shanti is. Kiva is a shop window to help lenders provide micro loans via their microfinance partners around the world. Kiva doesn’t cap their partners’ interest rates. We do. If you lend money to Kiva, your money is being repaid at an interest rate of 35% on average, with some as high as 65%. At Shanti we cap the total interest rate at 12% and that 12% is used for the local community to look after group interests.

Let’s alleviate poverty through microfinance!

We are in the process of building a new website. In the meantime you can learn more about the team and make online “investments” here.

Sheetal is also the UK Deal Maker (by appointment) for the UK Trade and Investment’s Global Entrepreneur Programme and advises MetaCert, a company that specialises in content classification and protects children from inappropriate content on the web. Previously, Sheetal was Director VC Relations at Microsoft and has received several awards including: Asian Women of Achievement Award (Prince Charles and Cherie Blair), “One to Watch” in Asian Woman Magazine’s Power 100 list, Success Magazine’s Top 5 Most Powerful Asian Women in the UK, and an Alumni Award of Excellence from the University of Alberta.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations).

Sheetal is on the board of MetaCert which provides child safety technology online and she is UK Deal Maker (by appointment) for the UK Trade and Investment’s Global Entrepreneur Programme. Prior to this Sheetal was CEO at Innovative Social Ventures, a consultancy for start-ups to provide social impact through technology.

From 2000- 2005 Sheetal was Director of VC Relations at Microsoft where she worked with the Venture Capital community in EMEA and the Silicon Valley to help their portfolio companies leverage the .NET initiative, access smart funding and go to market. Previously she worked with the Edmonton Police force working with children and women to alleviate domestic violence and assist victims with drug abuse.

Sheetal has received several awards: Asian Women of Achievement: Social and Humanitarian (Prince Charles and Cherie Blair) for her efforts on taking technology to developing communities in India and Africa (2005); Management Today Magazine 35 Under 35; Success Magazine No 5 of top most powerful Asian women in the UK (2006), Award for Entrepreneur of the Year by Asian Woman Magazine and No 3 Ones To Watch’ section of the Asian Power 100 list – the most influential and highest achieving Asian Women in Britain (2007).

Asian Woman Magazine covered a story of Sheetal’s business in the Sept 2007 issue.

Sheetal has been invited to Buckingham Palace for “Women in Business” reception hosted by Her Majesty, The Queen in November 2007, Alumni Award of Excellence from the University of Alberta and was most recently nominated for the Microsoft Alumni Integral Awards 2012.

Sheetal has a Masters in International Relations (Economics) at the London School of Economics and a BA (Honors) in International Politics at the University of Alberta, Canada. She is a yoga teacher and plays drums and dohl.

She is married to entrepreneur Paul Walsh and is a citizen of Britain and Canada.
 

FIND Sheetal Here:

Shanti Microfinance

Other links to her credentials:

Sheetal Mehta Walsh, on the Rise of Social Entrepreneurship
http://www.thenextwomen.com/2013/03/21/sheetal-mehta-walsh-rise-social-entrepreneurship

Website – Sheetal Mehta Walsh

Linked in – Sheetal Mehta Walsh

Glad to Be a Woman – Sheetal Mehta Walsh

Videos: change-maker-in-india-sheetal-mehta-walsh

Sheetal Mehta on Twitter @_Sheetal

Facebook – Sheetal Mehta Walsh
 
*** NOMINATED BY Meetika Srivastava

 
 
 
 
 

A Celebration of Women™

 

welcomes this visionary with open arms and look forward to celebrating many collaborations, bettering the lives of women and children through leveling the playing field in the world of education and entrepreneurship.

 

 

Brava Sheetal!