Ten Startups graduate from “Code for The Next Billion” Programme
Nasscom 10,000 Startups and Facebook, today concluded the second edition of the Code for The Next Billion programme with ten shortlisted social impact start-ups showcasing their products on the Demo Day. The six month long immersive program received over 250 applications of which 10 were short-listed from sectors such as healthcare, education, agri-tech, blockchain.
The programme, a joint initiative by Facebook and Nasscom 10,000 start-ups, started in the year 2015, to discover and empower the next generation of social impact start-ups in the country. Moving beyond the boundaries of digital natives, the second edition of the program was aimed at nurturing social impact start-ups creating digital innovations that serve to bring larger sections of new-to-internet/bottom of pyramid users into the digital fold.
As per Nasscom’s internet report, the number of internet users in India will see a two-fold rise at 730 million by 2020 and are expected to take an incredible leap towards internet accessibility.
“Today, we are witnessing a remarkable growth in the start-up ecosystem, propelled by innovative thinking and attitude to build solutions in key sectors where technology can play a revolutionary role. This is a positive step towards our objective to empower the developer community and motivate large scale innovation impacting bottom of the pyramid. Through the program, we aimed to accelerate the development and adoption of mobile internet applications across India. We would like to thank all our partners for their valuable support and trust and hope to work with a lot more people in the future,” said Sangeeta Gupta, Sr. Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Nasscom.
“Identifying, encouraging and mentoring start-ups focusing on India-first innovations is vital to foster an ecosystem that supports innovative solutions tailored to the historically unconnected and underserved. The joint initiative with Nasscom and other partners from the industry is aimed at building the much needed infrastructural support that offers an avenue for the unique imagination, risk appetite and skills associated with social enterprises building applications to solve education, financial, health and public utility challenges. We are excited to support the journeys of these startups and hope that their journeys inspire the next generation of developers to apply their talents to solving these problems,” said Satyajeet Singh, Head of Platform Partnerships, India and South Asia, Facebook.
The program was also supported by funding partners Unitus Seed Fund, Ankur Capital and Indian Angel Network, outreach partner Invest India, incubation partner Social Alpha and design mentorship partner Design4India.
Selected Startups
1. Haqdarshak Empowerment Solutions Private Limited: A social enterprise working to make welfare schemes more accessible to citizens, Haqdarshak’s multi-state, multi-lingual mobile technology platform helps citizens discover, apply for, and benefit from government and private schemes that they qualify for.
2. Eye-D: An assistant to those who are visually impaired, the app helps the user be aware of their location, explore and navigate to nearby places of interest, evaluate their surroundings with their smartphone camera and ‘read’ printed text.
3. Bodhi Health Education: The startup helps healthcare and dental care organisations hire the right candidates and train them efficiently with proven technology solutions.
4. TheTeacherApp: A not-for- profit venture, the app aims to plug holes in the training infrastructure for educators in the country, and guide and train teachers from schools all across India.
5. Jiovio Healthcare Pte: The organisation provides personalised and predictive maternal care using AI, IoT and wearable technology.
6. KrishiHub: This startup improves famers’ lives by providing them with a platform that enables them to sell directly to businesses like restaurants, hotels, canteens and retail stores, eliminating middlemen. Doing so lets the farmers get the best prices for their produce.
7. PublicVibe: This is a news aggregation platform where you can find instant local news and videos in English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati from all leading newspapers and news channels.
8. Right2Vote Infotech Pvt Limited: This is an online verified voting platform for all kinds of elections, including polls for government bodies, corporate organisations, colleges and schools, among others.
9. ChainFrame: A blockchain products company, ChainFrame is focused on using the power of blockchain to create radically transparent systems for large scale public use for state and national governments.
10. Helper4U Services LLP: The startup aims to do away with middlemen in the hiring of unskilled or semi-skilled helpers, benefitting both the job seekers as well as the employers.
