Top IT Institutes to Build Ecosystem for 5,000 Startups

The Action for India (AFI), International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-H), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-H) and T-Hub have joined hands to develop social entrepreneurship ecosystem that will help start-ups to scale up their reach.

The agreement has been signed between the four entities with an aim to provide support to around 5,000 start-ups in the next five years.

The agreement was signed at the annual Action for India Forum 2019. In order to create an ecosystem to support tech-enabled, social impact start-ups, the experiences and resources are pooled in and aid is provided by the partners to scale up the operations of the target group of start-ups.

“India requires both venture model start-ups and social model start-ups to become a five trillion-dollar economy. The venture model start-ups have almost reached maturity. But social enterprises that improve quality of life of people by deploying technology need solid support and a robust growth ecosystem,” Mr. Ravi Narayan, Chief Executive Office of T-Hub, said.

The collaboration between the T-Hub and the like-minded ecosystem enablers such as IITH, IIITH and AFI will help to utilise their expertise and experiences to create a social impact ecosystem that will offer scaling support to social entrepreneurs, he said.

“The alliance will address the critical challenges that social entrepreneurs face. These challenges include working on their business models, discovery of markets, building go-to-market strategies and scale-up strategies,” Mr. Sanjay Kadaveru, CEO of AFI, said.

AFI, which is a social impact-driven platform for entrepreneurs, will make use of its network to aid the start-ups, covered under the initiative. AFI Impact Investment Fund and Silicon Valley Leadership Circle will also help AFI in this regard. Whereas, IIT-H and IIIT-H will help the start-ups by providing technology upgradation and support using their government connections.

Source: IBEF

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