N/1 Graduates!
On March 9 we celebrated the conclusion of N/1 — our first cohort of early stage nonprofits. Picked from over a thousand applicants these 9 exceptional entrepreneurs spent the past 6 months accelerating their startup journey aided by the stellar mentoring and support by N/Core and our Partners. Soiree N/1 was the grand finale of the incubation journey where the founders showcased their work to an exclusive gathering of philanthropists, sector leaders, Heads of Foundations, and CSR leaders in Bangalore.
Watch: 6 months journey of the N/1 cohort
Soiree week
The final week began with each of the 9 nonprofit entrepreneurs coming together in Bangalore to share their experiences of the past 6 months, collaborate, and get inspiration from sessions with sector stalwarts, as they got ready to share their ideas of social change with the world!
The sessions with leaders like P R Ganapathy (COO, Villgro), Lakshmi Pratury (Founder, INK), P R Ganapathy (COO, Villgro), Madhav Chavan (Founder, Pratham), Venkat Krishnan (Founder, GiveIndia, Arya Tripathy (PSA Legal) and mny more from the nonprofit and the corporate sector helped the N/1 cohort understand the various facets of the social entrepreneurship journey and gain insights from their ideas, resources and best practices.
N/1 Soiree
N/1 Soiree celebrated nonprofit entrepreneurship with everyone passionate about making the new breed of entrepreneurs successful.
The event was attended by eminent personalities including Vijay Mahajan (Founder, Basix), Binny Bansal (Founder, Flipkart), Naveen Tewari (Founder, InMobi), Sindhushree Khullar (first CEO, NITI Aayog), Kulmeet Bawa (MD, India & South Asia, Adobe) and more.
Speaking about the event Murugan Vasudevan, Head — South Asia, Social Innovation Group, Cisco said, “It was a really good event — 9 amazing young entrepreneurs and some of the ideas were truly disruptive and with a fresh approach to problem solving that only a young entrepreneur can bring to the table.”
He added, “Since I met all of them during week 1 — I can see how far they have come in 6 months in how they tell their stories and how they are thinking about scale.”
The event also saw an interesting panel discussion moderated by Atul Satija, Founder N/Core with Vijay Mahajan, Founder, Basix, Madhav Chavan, Founder, Pratham, Binny Bansal, Founder, Flipkart; and Naveen Tiwari Founder, InMobi discussing on the topic “Enabling environment we need for social transformation in India.”
The leaders agreed that whether it was the nonprofit sector or the corporate sector, what was important was not putting a large amount of capital but the right capital as that pushed one to work smartly.
Commenting on entrepreneurs having mentors and role models, Madhav Chavan said, “A successful entrepreneur is one who is his original self and not copying someone else.”
Bright new ideas of social change
The showcase saw the N/1 incubatees present their story of social change to the gathering of eminent guests. From digitizing music to elevate livelihood of folk singers, and developing entrepreneurship in remote Bihar, to transforming public healthcare using SixSigma and Lean Methodologies, and measuring water contaminant levels using a smartphone, the event was a testimony to the cohort’s potential for wild success in transforming lives at large scale.
The organizations that were part of this journey are:
- Project Potential: Empowering youth in Bihar through entrepreneurship
- Saarthi Education: Increasing parental involvement in education
- Foundation for Environmental Monitoring: An open source platform for monitoring water and soil quality
- Akshar Foundation: Accelerated schooling for community development
- Sukhibhava: Empowering women with access to menstrual hygiene
- Navgurukul: Accelerated skills development for careers in technology
- Sushrat Foundation: Transforming public healthcare
- Anahad Foundation: Elevating folk and tribal music through digitization
- The Education Alliance: Transforming the public school system
Thank you!
The 6 months of incubation and the soiree event itself was a collective effort of many who came together to support and encourage the budding founders and help us create an ecosystem nurturing the next set of nonprofit unicorns.
The N/1 cohort is supported by BookASmile, Indira Foundation, Dr. Reddy’s Foundation. The Soiree event partners were CoWrks, Kingfisher Ultra and Bhagini Icon. Thank you for celebrating social entrepreneurship with us!
If you would like to support any startup from the N/1 Cohort, do get in touch with us.
