The Kerala State Women’s Development Corporation Ltd. (KSWDC) will organise ‘Escalera,’ a two-day women’s development summit, in connection with its 35th anniversary celebrations.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the summit, aimed at deliberating on sustainable development of the organisation and its beneficiaries, at the Sri Mulam Club auditorium here on February 22.
The summit will kick off on February 22 morning with a technical session on ‘Women entrepreneurship – the KSWDC experience.’ KSWDC women entrepreneurs will share their experience at the summit, to be chaired by KSWDC chairperson K.C. Rosakutty. Anoop Ambika, Chief Executive Officer, Kerala Startup Mission, will talk on ‘DigitAll – Innovation and technology for gender equality.’
The summit inaugural will be held at 4 p.m. The Chief Minister will also inaugurate the K.R. Gouri Amma Endowment, instituted to commemorate K.R. Gouri who was the Minister when the KSWDC was formed in 1998, and release a signature video on 35 years of the KSWDC.
Commemorative address
Former Minister for Health P.K. Sreemathi will deliver the K.R. Gouri Amma commemorative address. commemorative address. Minister for Health Veena George will preside over the inaugural. Cultural programmes, including one by singer Arya Dayal, will be held in the evening.
On February 23, sociologist and legal researcher Kalpana Kannabiran will deliver the K.R. Gouri Amma Endowment Lecture at 9.30 a.m. Planning Board member Ravi Raman will chair the session. Ms. George will be the chief guest.
A technical session on ‘Challenges and opportunities’ will follow. A session on ‘Financial empowerment sector’ will see a panel discussion in which former Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac, former Chief Secretary S.M. Vijayanand, and Local Self-government Additional Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan will speak.
A post-lunch session on the ‘Social infrastructure development sector’ will have a panel discussion in which Mayor Arya Rajendran, Planning Board member Mini Sukumar, Women and Child Development Director Priyanka G., and Kerala Institute of Local Administration Joy Elamon will take part.
The last session on the ‘Socio-political development sector’ will have Fire and Rescue Services Director General B. Sandhya, Gender Council consultant T.K. Anandi, Centre for Cultural Studies Director Meena T. Pillai, Pondicherry University’s former head of Women Studies Usha V.T., KILA senior faculty member Amrutha KPN, and KSWDC’s Bodhyam gender training faculty member Syama S. Prabha as panellists.
