Inspiring Entrepreneurship

The marketplace

More than fifty entrepreneurs took a stall in DesignSpace: handloom weavers, palmyra crafters, food and spice producers, organic growers, solar installers, technology ventures and makers of many other kinds. The marketplace held ventures we have supported and businesses with no earlier connection to it, and exhibitors sold directly to visitors over the four days.

An orientation session was held for exhibitors on 16 February, so that people selling in public for the first time knew what to expect.

Entrepreneurs Next Level

Business workshops ran beside the stalls in two sessions. Kirithika Thushyantha of TechnoBrain International and Rajan Bala of Aravanai led the first, and Vakeesan Rathikaran of Upbold and Abdul Basith Rafeekin the second. On the third day the entrepreneurs met for a discussion. Kabilan Thavachelvan and Martin Christoph Preis of tara, Germany, ran a session on handicraft products and selling them for export.

Kirithika Thushyantha

TechnoBrain International. Led the first workshop

Rajan Bala

Aravanai, Canada. Led the first workshop

Vakeesan Rathikaran

Upbold. Led the second workshop

Kabilan Thavachelvan

tara, Germany. Handicraft products and export

Martin Christoph Preis

tara, Germany. Handicraft products and export

The DreamShot Pitch for Entrepreneurs

On Saturday and Sunday, founders pitched their businesses to a panel of investors and industry leaders, with thirty people taking part. Three of them won prize money to grow their businesses.

The jury

Abhivarman Paranirupasingam

Businessman and investor, Canada

Mumtaz Aroos Faleel

Country Director, WUSC Sri Lanka

Angela Paul Nirmalini

Visions Global Empowerment

Rinujan Kananesan

Impact investor, Canada

Harren Selvakumar

Co-founder, The Aram Initiative, UK

Aravinth Panch

Our co-founder

Nevindaree Premarathne

Founder and CEO, Makers Global

P Sharmila, Hand Touch Handicraft Products: LKR 200,000

P Sharmila is an entrepreneur from Batticaloa whose business brings together home-based palmyra craft producers. Her own path has not been easy: she came through serious health problems while carrying the responsibility of her family, and built a living through her skills.

What began as a livelihood for herself now involves a collective of more than 100 women, many from women-headed families, who make palmyra handicrafts at home around their family responsibilities. Sharmila brings their skills together, develops products and takes them to market: baskets, mats, hats, food containers, kitchen products and decorative pieces from palmyra and other natural materials. She also wants to reduce the use of plastic, polythene and disposable products by offering practical alternatives made locally.

The award supports the growth of the business, and her aim of opening more home-based craft work to women and bringing natural-material products to more customers.

Inthiran Kagenthini, Lovely Enterprises: LKR 150,000

Inthiran Kagenthini, from Mollipothana in Trincomalee, began developing her product while looking for a better option for her own menstrual care. From a family with a background in traditional Ayurvedic practice, she learned from her grandmother about the herbs women of earlier generations used. She began researching neem, turmeric, aloe vera and tulsi, and how that knowledge could go into a modern sanitary napkin. Small experiments for her own use grew into Lovely Natural Napkins, and then Lovely Enterprises.

Making something for herself was very different from producing a safe, standardised product for other women, so she travelled to India to study sanitary napkin production. The product is still in development, testing and validation, and testing it to the right quality and safety standards is part of her next steps.

“Lovely started because I was searching for a solution for myself. Then I began to think: if I am facing these problems, there must be many other women going through the same thing silently.” Inthiran Kagenthini, founder of Lovely Enterprises

Kavimaninanthan Mancy, Luxury Herbs: LKR 150,000

Kavimaninanthan Mancy started by questioning the products people use every day. Looking closely at the ingredients in shampoos and skincare, she began to explore whether she could make gentler alternatives at an affordable price. Through Luxury Herbs she develops herbal personal-care products, including a foaming herbal shampoo made without SLES and a 5% niacinamide skincare formulation.

The prize lets her develop the products further, strengthen the brand and bring Luxury Herbs to more customers.

“I want people to pay attention to what is actually inside the products they use every day. Through Luxury Herbs, I want to create products that customers can understand, trust and confidently choose.” Kavimaninanthan Mancy, Luxury Herbs