WCIC unveils Prathibhabhisheka – Women Entrepreneur Awards 2024

By Divya Thotawatte 

In its efforts to recognise and reward Sri Lanka’s outstanding female entrepreneurs, Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce (WCIC) recently announced the launch of its annual flagship event “WCIC Prathibhabhisheka – Women Entrepreneur Awards 2024”. 

This national event, held for the third consecutive year, will be held in January 2025. While primarily recognising Sri Lankan entrepreneurs it is also open to women entrepreneurs from the SAARC region under a special category. The awards ceremony will honour women entrepreneurs for their tenacity to scale and grow, and for their contribution and impact on the economy.

“We invite outstanding women entrepreneurs, who have braved the challenges in the past few years, to share their story of resilience and achievements to compete for the coveted WCIC Prathibhabhisheka – The Women Entrepreneur Awards (WEA) 2024,” said WCIC Chairperson Anoji De Silva, highlighting that the women entrepreneurs who participated in the event in the previous years had received many opportunities, including networking and publicity. 

She said that the event was aimed to help women entrepreneurs build their business networks while giving them the opportunity to grow and scale their businesses, especially to be export-oriented businesses. “The applicants are now very aware of the need for a strategic outlook for the business and the need to establish robust governance and finance procedures. Sri Lanka is too small an economy for people to really make a big impact. If we are to make a big impact, we have to push people to go global and to be export-oriented.”

The competition empowers and encourages entrepreneurs that contribute or has the potential of contributing highly to the country’s economy, she said. “The combined revenue of the Sri Lankan applicants for the competition in the previous year was Rs.35.1 billion. We were also happy to see a significant increase in the start-ups, which accounted for 35% of the applicants – a very positive sign, especially in a situation where we are economically stressed to have more start-ups coming in,” she noted. 

On behalf of the organising committee, WEA Co-Chairs Nilani Seneviratne and Tusitha Kumarakulasingam shared the following sentiments. “We are extremely excited to conduct this National initiative to honour women entrepreneurs across the country. The momentum has been established and entrepreneurs eagerly await to be a part of this journey. We will be accepting applications under the categories – Start-Up, Micro, Small, Medium and Large. Each category will have a specified revenue for the year under review – 2023/2024. Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards will be presented for each category. 

WEA seeks participation from regional women entrepreneurs where participants from across the 9 provinces are expected to participate. “Best of the Province” is awarded to the most outstanding of all the applications, from each province. 

The women will also be considered for the special awards: “The Most Outstanding Export Oriented Entrepreneur (Product and Services)”, “The SAARC Entrepreneur of the Year”, “Digital Entrepreneur of the Year”, “The Most Innovative Entrepreneur of the Year”, “The Woman of Courage”, “The Young Woman Entrepreneur of the Year”, “Outstanding Start-Up of the Year” and “The Social Entrepreneur of the Year” for 2024. The ceremony will culminate with the selection of “The Woman Entrepreneur of The Year 2024” award. 

The application for WEA can be downloaded via www.wcicsl.lk, or requested from the WCIC office (it would be sent to the interested applicants via email). The application should be stringently completed and submitted to the WCIC along with all the material required to substantiate the applicant’s story. Entries close on 31 October 2024. 

WCIC Prathibhabhisheka – Women Entrepreneur Awards 2024 will be powered by the Platinum partner AIA Insurance, Diamond and Banking partner DFCC ALOKA, Collaborative partner US Agency for International Development (USAID) through the USAID CATALYZE Private Sector Development Activity, Gold partners McLarens Group and Sunquick Lanka, Silver partner Hayleys, and Bronze partner Impra Tea. The Creative partner will be Triad, where the Knowledge partner is Ernst & Young.