Innovate UK‘s game changers highlight female entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of technology. In the latest series, it puts the spotlight on Joyeeta Das, an inspiring woman in technology.
Das founded Gyana, a unique start-up that looks at social media and big data trends to form a unique search tool. Find out below why Innovate UK thinks she’s an inspirational figure in the tech world.
Starting out
After training as an engineer in India, Joyeeta began her career with a job at Cisco. She went on to found a company called Anahata Life and then furthered her studies with an MBA at the University of Oxford. At this point Joyeeta first thought up the idea for Gyana, and she set off on a mission to make her dream a reality. She was selected for two Innovate UK entrepreneur missions to the United States before bringing Gyana to market.
What does Gyana do?
Gyana aims to provide unique, in-depth analysis to consumers, business and government in an affordable way. It gathers information from several sources, including social media channels, traffic updates and weather, to piece together a detailed perspective about any selected area.
Gyana can tell you the trends of an area, the general attitudes amongst people there and even the emotional ‘vibe’. The tool becomes more powerful with more data input, providing us with a greater understanding of the world.
Persisting through hard times
No true entrepreneurial story would be complete without a bit of struggle, and Joyeeta’s unwavering belief in her idea helped navigate Gyana through the hard times. The team that she assembled at her new start-up had to work tirelessly to get this far, and at one point they even had to work without pay following the dropout of a potential investor.
However, Joyeeta’s enthusiasm for technology and innovation meant that this was just a small hiccup, In January 2015 she secured funding, and in November of that year an additional £1.5million was added. A few months later the Gyana staff number had grown to 15, and in July 2016 the product was launched.
The importance of business networking
Joyeeta’s success has a lot to do with taking advantage of the right networking opportunities. When she attended networking events she did so with a positive and enterprising outlook, which helped her to forge beneficial partnerships and find investment. Joyeeta is a huge advocate of business networking and urges all entrepreneurs to get out there and start introducing themselves.
About the author
Innovate UK works with people, companies and partner organisations to find and drive the science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy. It has helped more than 7,600 organisations with projects estimated to add more than £11.5 billion to the UK economy and create 55,000 extra new jobs.
