Damini Mahajan - Co-founder and CEO

WeMakeScholars (WMS) is online study opportunities search and discovery platform providing information on scholarships, internships & educational service providers globally. Started by Damini Mahajan, it aims to connect the world through education by providing the right opportunities. Damini started this company when she moved back to the country after graduating from England. “When I got back, my parents were expecting me to join an MNC with big-name which they can flaunt among relatives,” says the founder. But she was determined to start something of her own. She believes that family support is the most important thing while starting up. Her parents are very encouraging of her decisions. “There are many women entrepreneurs who are pressurized for marriage by their parents. But my parents understand my vision and goals and leave a marriage and other such decisions on me,” she adds. Damini advises men to support their working daughter, sister, and wife by sharing family responsibilities so that they can focus on work. She adds on to say that ‘Behind every successful daughter, there is a selfless father’.Damini is an alumnus of the University of Sheffield (UoS), UK where she pursued MS in Bioprocess Engineering. Apart from starting up WMS, she is also on the board of directors of Naturlich Global Beverages Pvt. Ltd (NGB). NGB is a beverage technology company that manufactures functional health beverages. Under her guidance, NGB came up with an innovative formulation and process technology for a health drink which was recognized as one of the most innovative technology by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, Government of India and was awarded a 5 million INR grant.

WMS is a Not-for-profit startup having its roots developed in accordance with a social entrepreneurship model building the whole venture in a community-oriented way. The growth of our portal accelerated due to the fact that students couldn’t find a single place where opportunities like scholarships, internships, courses, universities are accessible via smart sorting based on user preferences. We have crossed 1.5 million page views in just 3 months of our launch. She believes that women have better multitasking skills and that’s how they balance both their professional and personal life and succeed in both. While she is successfully taking care of both aspects, she believes that there are many sacrifices that have to be made in the path she has chosen. Among all the challenges entrepreneurs face every day, one of the main challenges is hiring, especially for a technical role. “There are too many technical people out there but there are very few who are skilled enough for the job,” says the founder. A start-up has many stages and at every stage, it polishes you and your skills as a founder. When you have an idea and nobody believes in it, your self-confidence and trust in yourself are tested. When you are converting your idea to reality, your hard work and persistence comes into the picture. When Damini started up initially, she says that she was not good at managing people or even at networking. “I was good with the core work my company involves but there is a lot more which a founder should know and learn”.She advises the future womenpreneurs to stay focused! “There are many hurdles you are going to face. If you are in a non-IT start-up, dealing with blue-collar people is going to be a tough call. But you have to stay stiff and go ahead. And please ignore when your relatives are pushing you to get married.

(Text Source: feministaa )