Comments
N/Core, an incubator for non-profit start-ups launched by The/Nudge Foundation in January, has announced the opening of its new six-month-long incubation programme, christened N/1, for 10 early-stage non-profits.
Each of the start-ups will receive a seed fund of ₹10 lakh and will be allocated a dedicated partner from the industry to provide deeper mentorship and support throughout the six months and beyond.
Applications for the first cohort of N/1, which begins on September 11, will be open until August 6.
“N/Core Alpha, the first 14-day incubation programme that we launched for 20 non-profit start-ups in April, was a pilot project from which we learnt that non-profits require deeper engagement with industry experts,” Atul Satija, founder and CEO, The/Nudge Foundation, told BusinessLine .
“While those start-ups were not given any seed grants, N/1 start-ups will receive ₹10 lakh each and be mentored by four renowned, experienced leaders who are coming together as N/Core Partners.
“A sub-set of N/1 start-ups that show potential will individually be mentored and supported by the Partners beyond six months, for another 24 months.” N/Core Alpha attracted 583 applications from across India, the US and Kenya.
The four Partners that will drive the incubator forward are: Sanjay Purohit, former Chairman, Infosys Consulting; Maneesh Dhir, former MD of Apple India and current Partner at Social Venture Partners; KR Lakshminarayan, Chief Endowment Officer, Azim Premji Foundation, and Ujwal Thakar, former CEO of Pratham and GiveIndia.
N/Core plans to incubate 100 non-profits over the next five years, with two batches of 10 start-ups each, every year.
N/Core has also formed a Corporate Social Entrepreneurship (CSE) council with leaders from large organisations to promote innovation-led, problem solving in the non-profit sector and to support N/Core incubatees.
Some of the CSE members are: Anil Kumar, CEO, Axis Bank Foundation; Namita Vikas, Group President and MD, YES Bank, and Biren Bhuta, Chief - CSR, Tata Steel.
Backed by Nandan Nilekani, The/Nudge Foundation is a collective of some of the country’s best leaders and entrepreneurs, whose goal is to pull 1 million people out of poverty by 2020 by providing them with sustainable livelihoods through a gurukul system of training and skilling.
Since its inception in July 2015, The/Nudge has provided livelihoods to 1,000 underprivileged men and women, and at present has the capacity to train 2,000 people a year.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.