TLDR: Navya Naveli Nanda and Samyak Chakrabarty are championing initiatives to equip women with essential soft skills, enabling them to thrive in a job market increasingly influenced by Generative AI. Their work through organizations like Nimaya focuses on bridging skill gaps and fostering critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence to ensure women’s continued employability and leadership in India’s evolving workforce.
In an era where Generative AI is rapidly reshaping the global job landscape, the conversation around women’s employability has taken on new urgency. Navya Naveli Nanda, founder of Project Naveli, and Samyak Chakrabarty, founder of Workverse and co-founder of Nimaya, are at the forefront of this discussion, advocating for strategic skill development to empower women in the face of technological advancements.
Their collaborative efforts, particularly through the Nimaya Foundation, aim to future-proof women’s careers by focusing on soft skills that complement, rather than compete with, artificial intelligence. As highlighted in a CNBC-TV18 discussion, Nanda and Chakrabarty emphasize that skills such as critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and emotional intelligence are crucial for individuals to ‘start thinking where ChatGPT stops.’ These human-centric abilities are seen as essential ‘superpowers’ for navigating uncertainty and solving complex real-world scenarios that AI cannot yet address.
Nimaya, which translates to ‘opportunity’ in Sanskrit, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to bridging the gender gap in the workforce. The initiative supports young women in ambitious careers, enabling them to balance roles where technology and humans can collaborate for a brighter future for India. So far, Nimaya has successfully upskilled over 3,000 women across India through its Smart Fellowship and other programs, including daughters of police officers in Mumbai, farmers in Haryana, and girls from rural Uttar Pradesh. The latest edition of the fellowship is assisting more than a thousand women in Lucknow to acquire vital workplace soft skills.
Chakrabarty’s Workverse initiative further complements this vision by building a virtual world where graduates use avatars to master soft skills through immersive experiences in imaginary companies, preparing them for real-world challenges like conflict resolution. Nanda, through Project Naveli, focuses on gender equality, with platforms like Nimaya, Nyaari, and Entreprenaari working towards an equitable and just world.
The urgency of these efforts is underscored by significant demographic data: women constitute 49% of India’s population, yet less than 15% hold leadership positions. Experts suggest that for India to achieve an 8% GDP growth, women must account for over 50% of the new workforce. Nanda and Chakrabarty argue that women possess innate abilities in empathy, compassion, and sensitivity, which, though often perceived as weaknesses, are actually strengths vital for leadership in today’s work environment. They advocate for a shift where women are recognized and enabled for these strengths, rather than being expected to conform to ‘masculine’ traits.
Also Read:
- National Commission for Women Unveils ‘Yashoda AI Abhiyan’ for Digital Empowerment and Safety of Women
- Cultivating Uniquely Human Capacities: A Strategy for Students in the Age of Generative AI
The challenge extends beyond merely securing jobs; it involves ensuring women are considered for leadership roles, especially in conventional SMEs that generate the majority of employment. The goal is to create a mechanism that empowers women from all backgrounds to aspire to diverse roles, including financial analysts, AI and ML experts, copywriters, product managers, entrepreneurs, or CEOs, thereby combating the looming crisis of unemployability.
