IIM Bangalore’s NSRCEL successfully concludes 3-year incubation program in collaboration with Capgemini to support social innovations in India

India’s oldest startup incubation arm, NSRCEL, with programs specifically catering to entrepreneurs with profit ventures and social ventures, also student and women entrepreneurs offers its support to various players of the startup ecosystem. NSRCEL, the startup hub at IIM Bangalore, has incubated over 279 ventures in the past 15 months. Most ventures at NSRCEL today have a tech-enabled proposition, often using a combination of digital, cloud, and AI/ ML technologies as a route to differentiate and scale.  Over the past 20 years since its inception, NSRCEL has been engaged with over 115,000 entrepreneurs through a range of programs. NSRCEL’s Capgemini Startup Cohort plans to support not-for-profit tech-enabled ventures solving social problems and impacting areas of education, employability, and the environment.

CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Mr. Nachiket Kulkarni, Senior Program Manager of IIMB NSRCEL

• Please tell us about your current projects and initiatives?

We just concluded our 3-year incubation program in collaboration with Capgemini to support social innovations through 2 tracks. Track 1 comprised of 4 growth stage for-profit ventures supported through an ad-hoc incubation program and market access grant. Track 2 comprised of 9 early stage tech-enabled non-profits supported through high-touch incubation and seed grant. We are also gearing for the second cohort of our NSRCEL Impact Orbit Incubation program through our renewed partnership with Capgemini to support both for-profits and non-profits social enterprises who are revolutionizing and creating an impact via tech enabled solutions. 

• How can a technology incubator be more advantageous than conventional business strategies to address present or upcoming problems?

NSRCEL’s incubation programs are a combination of rigorous fundamental business knowledge coupled with upskilling on practical business skills. NSRCEL does not only offer structured programs, but takes an ecosystem approach, thereby giving our ventures long-term mentors, access to various sources of finance, and an incomparable network capital including peer entrepreneurs. An incubator like NSRCEL, with these offerings is far more valuable than conventional business strategies.

• What is your vision for the future?

With the renewed support from Capgemini India, we aim to be the largest Social Enterprise Incubator in the country to incubate and support 120+ ventures in the next 3 years who are leading social innovations driven by technology through a multitude of interventions such as expert sessions, workshops, mentoring, ecosystem enablement and of course financial support via grants. This partnerships also helps us in being a pioneer and leader to bring about the convergence of the two worlds in the impact space. At this scale, we are the only incubator working with both for-profit & non-profit social enterprises. With our past incubation experience, and with support of an institution like IIMB (Faculty, research etc), we want to be at the forefront of enabling conversations between the two impact worlds.

• What are the challenges that you have faced so far in taking your idea forward regarding an incubation programme?

The constant balance to be maintained between addressing the common needs of most entrepreneurs in the cohort and catering to the individual pain points have been a struggle in helping ventures realize their full potential. The experience of running the past incubation programs have taught us that social ventures often struggle with their legal and financial compliances. Hence, there is a pressing need to have a stack of service providers to support the ventures. Some other areas where we want to build a stack is with players in alternative financing & also govt officers/departments who can enable social enterprises in their jurisdictions.

• We would like to know more about The Capgemini Startup Cohort plan which you have planned to support not-for-profit tech-enabled ventures. 

The NSRCEL Impact Orbit Incubation program in partnership with Capgemini will run across 3 years with 9 cohorts supporting a total of 120 for-profits and non-profits creating impact through tech-enabled innovations. Each cohort will be for 6 months with sessions, mentoring, networking events, bootcamp and grant support for the ventures. We aim to cover topics ranging from OKR & Goal Setting, Pitching and Storytelling, Financial Forecasting and Revenue Model, Sales and GTM to Impact Measurement and Digital Marketing. We also follow a stacked approach in giving a holistic support to the ventures through experts, ecosystem connects and a stack of relevant service providers. As we are about to complete the first cohort of Orbit-1, we have ventures from education, livelihood and agritech space who are transforming the lives of the people from bottom of pyramid with the support of technology. They have used technology as a tool to penetrate the remotest part of the country for example, Sitara Akka foundation is leveraging the local language Kannada and accessible media such as YouTube and WhatsApp to support students from underprivileged communities from across the state to successfully complete their SSLC board exam. In our previous non-profit cohort with Capgemini, we had 9 ventures across different sectors leveraging technology for their intervention for example, Vigyanshaala International which started as a project by two physicists pursuing their PhD abroad to make STEM education accessible to girls from remote geographies such as Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand has now transformed through their Kalpana program into a STEM movement for women across the country leveraging technology and an online app to connect young girls to inspiring and relatable role models, mentorship and global opportunities.

• What was the underlying principle of The Capgemini Startup Cohort plan?

The Social Business Model Canvas is the underlying principle and the guiding framework for designing the Social Incubation program. Through this approach we place equal importance on growing social venture as a business and tracking, measuring, recording and analysing the impact created by the venture.

• How do you identify and select participants for your programmes? 

We have a multi-stage review process that we deploy in selecting the top ventures for the incubation program. Through extensive outreach, we invite social entrepreneurs across the country to submit their applications for the program. The submitted applications are reviewed first by the Social program team based on certain set parameters and eligibility criteria. Lastly, the selected ventures are invited to present to a panel of experts from the NSRCEL and the partner ecosystem.