Being a woman entrepreneur is not one of the easiest tasks in India. In the past few decades, things have improved for the better but there are challenges too. Women entrepreneurs in India battle it out with their grit and determination against all hurdles. Shaheen Khan, Founder & CEO, CEDP Skill Institute is one such classic example who has played a path-breaking role in mentoring young individuals. Generating employment with skills is a tricky perspective in India. Under Khan’s prudent leadership, CEDP Skill Institute is playing a vibrant role in shaping up young promising individuals.
In addition to her 12 years of professional experience in the Education Industry, Shaheen has hands on experience in the field of learning & development and she is a Master of NLP and certified coach.
Khan’s main focus is toward skill development and since the inception of CEDP in 2010, she has been effortlessly working toward providing training to the youth in a holistic manner. Khan’s philosophy of ‘skilled education getting employment’ has led her to successfully design and execute the CEDP Skill Institution (Council of Education and Development Program Skill Institute).
Women empowerment is also one of her main agendas. Khan remarked, “The sixth economic census revealed that women in India constitute only 14% of the total entrepreneurs’ segment in the job sector, which clearly shows that the identity of Indian women in the entrepreneur segment still remains in obscurity. The odds stacked against us usually deprive us of reaching the desired milestones in our respective careers.
Equal consideration of gender in all aspects such as education, job, culture, and caste is a need of every country to ace the race of overall development. Thankfully, India has considerably channelizing its energies toward various causes which encourages education among girl child and entrepreneurship as a whole amongst the youth.”
Preliminarily a Regional Officer at the Bharat Sevak Samaj India, Khan encountered her determined interest in the field of learning, development and researching which later paved her title from an executive level to the Regional Program Manager. Khan’s previous experiences also include Kaya Skin Clinic & IBM.
Her mission is to ‘Empower the Youth of India with job oriented courses’. The contribution toward the National Mission of ‘Skill India’ that she has made is a distinct contribution to modernizing and revitalizing the existing skill education system that had lost its vigour and become rusted over time.
A true mentor with loads of experience, Shaheen Khan notes, “I’m grateful for the exposure I got through my active and brief involvement in the Skill India programme, which helped me discover the power of training and self upskilling. The existing gap in the training being provided and the requirement by the industry verticals prompted me to start my own skill institute, CEDP. Initially, operations from a small 350-sq. ft space were tough and the students were from varied backgrounds but mostly from lower income groups.
Nevertheless, constant perseverance and diligence toward the aim of delivering skill education of high standards and making the youth employable worked well and enabled CEDP to become one of the leading institutes in the country. Through CEDP Skill Institute, I look forward to encouraging and empowering the women with the required skills to become leaders of the future.”
Team Optimist wishes Shaheen Khan all the best.
