Trailblazers and trendsetters: women in offbeat careers

On this International Women’s Day, we salute all women for their grit and confidence to face challenges however big or small, competence in every arena, and self-reliance. And they do all this cheerfully with compassion and kindness in their hearts. Today women have conquered every field possible and they are equally adept at all facets of living.

Women today help each other without a trace of one-upmanship; they make sure their ilk is progressive and competent to face the world. Here we feature those women who have ventured into fields hitherto less heard of and triumphed in them.

The pad woman

 Most of us have a goal and if it is for a noble cause like Dr. Bharati Lavekar’s, who has made it her life’s mission to fight for the rights of menstrual issues, then it is laudable. She has set up ‘Tee Foundation Sanitary Pad Bank’, which has around 107,000 women bank account holders, all of whom have identity cards that can be produced every month while collecting 10 sanitary napkins from the bank.

Dr. Bharati has also installed sanitary napkins vending machines, disposable kits, and menstrual health kits besides sanitary pad vending machines around 10 schools across Versova constituency. Menstrual health kit, which is like a first aid box, has been affixed in schools, which would help to ease a girl’s first period cramps and other menstrual issues. Anyone interested to join the movement can log on to the website http://teefoundation.in and call on the numbers given on the website to donate pads.

Avante garde entrepreneur

 We have heard of women who fly but here is a woman who helps you soar in the skies with JetSetGo – an online service for booking private jets and helicopters. Dynamic Kanika Tekriwal, CEO and Co-Founder of JetSetGo Aviation Services Pvt. Ltd, has worked for close to a decade in the business aviation industry in India and the UK. Her determination to never quit helped JetSetGo charter new territories. She was featured in the BBC top 100 most powerful women in the world and Forbes Asia under 30 list. JetSetGo was awarded the National Entrepreneurship Award 2016.

Kanika’s focus is on bringing luxury back into the aviation business and “experience” back into life. JetSetGo provides an enterprise management tool for aircraft operators giving cloud-based scheduling, aircraft management and advanced trip-pricing capabilities with an in-built marketplace for services and parts.  It also provides customers the ability to compare and book private charters online with the ability to recoup cost of empty travel legs through a demand aggregation model that will help reduce charter costs. Here’s a trailblazer in the aviation industry!

Knowledge merchant

Young and raring to help students is Minal Anand, a millennial entrepreneur and the founder of GuruQ, a unique digital integrated platform that connects tutors and students with ease. As Founder and Chief Executive Officer, she is the visionary at GuruQ, an ed-tech stand with assurances of excellent values and new age methodologies to the way tutelage is provided in India.

Minal realizes the importance of training teachers with the latest teaching methodologies and to keep them informed with international and national progress and developments. Equipped with a sense of being innovative, Minal explored to get a grip of the challenges and create a platform that would modernize the education system.

Minal conceptualized GuruQ as a single, simplified, and cohesive ed-tech platform that provides online and offline tutoring and designed it based on insights drawn from comprehensive consumer research to address the need gap for quality tutors. Minal is an inspiration for knowledge seekers!

Cosmetic sculptor

In today’s times, most of us take out time and efforts to look good. There are many cosmetic surgeons but, skin being the most sensitive part of our body, it is vital that we visit a reliable and reputed doctor before we surrender to the knife. Dr Apratim Goel (MD, DNB, FAGE) is a Cosmetic Dermatologist and Laser Surgeon from Mumbai, India. With 15 years of experience in cosmetic dermatology and laser surgery, Apratim has conducted workshops, written chapters on chemical peels, microdermabrasion, lasers, and clinic management skills in the IADVL text book of dermatology. She is also on the board of various scientific publications.

CEO and Founder of Cutis Skin Solutions, Dr Goel’s Clinic has been repeatedly voted as the “Best Skin & Hair Clinic” in Mumbai. She was nominated in 2013 for “most respected cosmetic dermatologist of India”. In Dec 2014, she was again awarded the “Best Dermatologist in Mumbai” and, in 2015, her clinic was awarded the “best dermatology clinic in Mumbai”. “Look beautiful, feel confident” seems to be Apratim’s adage!

Tea trailer

 A foodie and a health freak herself, the Tea Trails venture is a dream come true for Kavita Mathur. With café outlets all over the country, Tea Trails café serves gourmet teas paired with eclectic food.

A trained educationist, Kavita headed the academic function of the largest pre- school chain in her earlier professional avatar. Her ardent love for the cup of chai made her devote the last couple of years to the study of tea and what it takes to brew a perfect cup. Her search for knowledge and the quest for sourcing the best leaves have taken her to the tea gardens of Darjeeling, Nilgiri, Kangra, Assam, Sikkim, Sri Lanka, and China. Kavita interacted with the captains of the industry while participating at the World Tea Expo and its Asian Chapter. She has studied the tea cultures and the modern business environment in the US, UK, Turkey, Hong Kong, and the Middle East. She is the go-to for all tea lovers.