‘Rural IT model’ by 34-yr-old woman draws praise

Tribune News Service

GS Paul

Amritsar, May 1

Nearly 25 km ahead of Amritsar, remote Tangra village-based entrepreneur Mandeep Kaur Sidhu ‘Tangra’ was surprised to receive an invite to be a part of the Sikh delegation to be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his Delhi residence on Friday.

Was an honour

I got the opportunity to talk with the PM for three minutes. It was an honour to be part of the Sikh delegation. — Mandeep Kaur, Amritsar Resident

Thirtyfour-year-old Mandeep has established SimbaQuartz, an IT services and digital marketing firm, in her native village that offers white-collar jobs to over 100 young IT-trained professionals from Amritsar, J&K and Chandigarh.

She was on the PM’s guest list of the Sikh delegates in recognition of her efforts in doing a sort of ‘reverse migration’, under which the youth from bigger cities are getting global-level job opportunities in a village.

“I got the opportunity to have a face-to-face talk with the PM for three minutes. I even apprised him of my initiative. It was an honour to be a part of the Sikh delegation from across the world,” she added.

Notably, this is not the first time when Mandeep has caught the fancy of Delhi ascendancy. Just three days ago, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal responded to Mandeep’s tweet related to her ‘rural IT model’.

Earlier, prior to the Assembly elections in February, Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia too visited SimbaQuartz and stated that India ought to establish the ‘IT villages’ instead of ‘IT cities’.

Born and brought up in a humble family, it was never easy for Mandeep to be an entrepreneur. Her father Sarbjit Singh ran a small flour mill, which was the only source of income of the family of four.

After completing her MBA in distinction from Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar, she did petty administrative jobs in Amritsar. However, instead of migrating to the US along with her husband Mandeep Singh Sidhu, she chose to utilise her abilities to be a job creator.

Simba Quartz, started in 2012, provides mobile and web application development, graphic designing, video editing, consultation and digital marketing services. What started off with a meagre three women staff members has now taken the shape of a firm having an annual turnover of nearly Rs 3 crore.