Hyderabad, Nov 30 (IANS): TiE Global in partnership with the US Embassy on Thursday announced launch of AIRSWEE 2.0, its marquee programme for economic empowerment of women through entrepreneurship in 30 Tier 2 and 3 cities in India.

The objective of All India Road Show for Women's Economic Empowerment through Entrepreneurship (AIRSWEE) is to educate, mentor and inspire women in smaller Indian cities to consider entrepreneurship as a viable and rewarding career path.

The announcement was made on the sidelines of Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES).

TiE Global, a not-for-profit organization with the mission of fostering entrepreneurship globally, won a grant of $125,000 from the US Department of State for its second phase. Last year, the grant was $140,000.

Seema Chaturvedi, Chairperson Project AIRSWEE, said AIRSWEE 1.0 initiated in 2016 empowered 125 women mentors from 27 cities.

Based on the significant impact created by it, TiE Global received funding support from the US Embassy to conduct mentorship based programme to scale up women entrepreneurship in India for a second year, she said.

Under Project AIRSWEE 2.0, TiE Global will host four-day workshops in cities which include Baroda, Hubli, Bhubaneshwar, Lucknow and Patna. Each workshop city will host 30 mentee participants for a total of 150 selected mentees.

TiE Global has unveiled the application at its website http://women.tie.org/mentee.php and is inviting applications from interested participants. The workshops will be free of cost for the women participants.

TiE Global is seeking to create a significant multiplier effect by creating a pay-it-forward culture by requiring each of these 150 mentees to mentor at least two mentees each. "This will create a ripple effect of at least 450 empowered women entrepreneurs," she said.

Under the first phase, workshops were conducted in Coimbatore, Warangal, Jaipur, Nagpur and Durgapur.