India's Premier B-School, Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode and the National Commission for Women (NCW), have come together for a unique academic offering for women entrepreneurs.

An opportunity for them to undergo professional training to launch their entrepreneurial career as well as a chance for existing women entrepreneurs to augment and scale up their businesses with professional mentoring, an IIM-K statement said here.

This collaborative online training programme to nurture and build entrepreneurial capability among women entrepreneurs will be designed and executed by the Centre of Excellence for Social Innovation (CESI) of the IIM-K in association with NCW and MyGov.in, it said.

To increase outreach and make the programme accessible, the programme will be offered bilingually in English and Malayalam. Aspiring women entrepreneurs can now choose from two programmes dedicatedly designed as per their current careers and skill sets- foundation programme in Entrepreneurship and Advanced Programme in Entrepreneurship.

While the foundation programme is designed for women who are novices and want to enter the entrepreneurial arena, the advanced programme is designed for women entrepreneurs who want to scale up their businesses. Announcing the distinctive association Professor Debashis Chatterjee, Director IIM Kozhikode, said "Innovation and entrepreneurship are the buzz words around which the history of 21st century would be scripted.

"Entrepreneurship has always been a gendered phenomenon, with a far lesser number of women choosing it as a road to empowerment. IIM Kozhikode is a pioneer in gender diversity and we strongly believe that collaborations like these will change the status quo and unleash the untapped potential of women entrepreneurs," he said.

Speaking on behalf of NCW, Meeta Rajivlochan, Member-Secretary of the Commission said women have a key role to play in the economic roadmap of India. "In a knowledge economy, access to knowledge is crucial. Through this collaboration with the Indian Institute of Management, the National Commission for Women aims to facilitate such access to knowledge; to empower women entrepreneurs and to pave the way for a happy, balanced and prosperous India," she said.

Head, CESI, IIM Kozhikode, Priya Nair Rajeev further underlined the objectives and significance of introducing this unique and empowering programmes.

By creating a bilingual programme, IIMK has made the best management education accessible to women who need it to improve their lives and lead their families and community to a better future, she said.

The duration of both online programmes is four months, with four hours of classes every week.

It will comprise 60 hours of learning which includes 40 hours of subject sessions and 20 hours dedicated to mentoring and Q&A, the statement added.