Tata Trusts, Social Alpha launch incubation programme for social impact startups

The programme aims to foster entrepreneurship by bringing together startup oriented individuals and technology innovations in labs.

Tata Trusts and Social Alpha has launched a fellowship programme, the Social Alpha Entrepreneurs for Impact (E4i) Programme with an aim to bring technology innovators and entrepreneurship oriented individuals onto a common platform to foster startups in the social sector.

The E4i programme will be spread over a year to enable an ecosystem, which can bring out innovations in the laboratory onto the marketplace. As this is being launched for the first time, it will focus on finding solutions across areas like water, sanitation, health, agriculture, energy and environment.

Social Alpha CEO and Co-founder Manoj Kumar said, “We wanted to create an avenue for passionate, empathetic and mission-driven changemakers to scout for potential technologies, create co-founding teams, build and test their solutions, and convert them into impactful ventures.”

The E4i programme is expected to select around eight finalists for this incubation initiative, which will include mentorship, and industry connects to create a financially viable social impact startup. It will also provide a monthly stipend for Rs 60,000 during the tenure of the programme.

“As our focus is to impart useful and practical know-how, E4i finalists will have access to mentors – with background in R&D, entrepreneurship, venture investing and grassroots development action. They can also expect a lot of hands on support from successful innovators and entrepreneurs,” said Manoj.

According to him, there are many innovations happening in various research institutes and laboratories across the country but they do not find practical applications due to lack of expertise on the go-to market strategy. The programme hopes to bring the connect between individuals with an entrepreneurial mindset and technology innovators.

Social Alpha is an organisation that is focused on incubating social impact startups, which received seed funding from Tata Trusts and also from the Department of Science and Technology. It has around 50 startups under its portfolio.