Google Plans Solve For India Programme To Support Indian Startups

Building on its effort to support the growing number of Startups focussing on building solutions to Solve for India and its local needs, Google India hosted a four day mentorship bootcamp for teams of ten Indian startups.

Speaking about the objective behind launching the programme, Karthik Padmanabhan, Developer Relations Lead, ‎Google India said, “ With this programme, our objective is to build a bridge between startups and the industry ecosystem and provide them with the right technology support and mentorship to help them succeed. We shortlisted 10 startups from 160 homegrown startups by traveling across 15 cities in India, and are now ready to scale this pilot as a dedicated program for India.”

Launched last year as an India-only pilot for mentorship and engagement by Google Developers Launchpad team, ‘Solve for India’ focusses on bringing the best of Google expertise across product, UX/UI and the latest technologies including machine learning and AI to help emerging startups that are focussing on building solutions that serves for India’s needs.

At the bootcamp, founders and their teams spent four days in one-on-one consults with experts from Google and external mentors from the industry to solve the critical product and growth challenges of the startups.

Speaking about the plans to scale the programme further, Paul Ravindranath G, Program Manager, Launchpad Accelerator, Google India, said, “Through the last ten months, we have focussed on building the right mentorship network to support the challenges faced by these startups. And we’re delighted to share that we will be expanding the mentoring support beyond this bootcamp, by launching a structured mentorship program for startups who are using machine learning and artificial intelligence to Solve for India, and run this as an ongoing effort”

Participating in the first bootcamp, were founders of startups, including Nebulaa, Slang Labs, PregBuddy, LegalDesk, PaySack, Vokal, FarMart, Meesho, Pratilipi and M-Indicator.

This is what one of the founders who participated in the programme had to say about Solve For India.

Subhadeep Mondal, Co-Founder and CEO, PregBuddy, said, “It was a great learning experience for us at the ‘Solve for India’ bootcamp. Our interactions with experts in the fields of product, technology, UI/UX and marketing, helped us getting the visibility around our product, customers and inbound partnerships. Our focused discussions and debates with mentors also helped us learn to build product strategies, improve sales process, make technology platform more efficient, and design for the next generation of internet users.”

Google is one of the myriad tech giants that’s closely watching the tech entrepreneurs in India and in the recent years, it claims to have witnessed an exponential growth in entrepreneurial and startup activity that goes beyond the big metros.

Paul also says that “We’re seeing a whole new generation of entrepreneurs and founders who’re innovating to solve for real challenges across Agriculture, Healthcare, Environment, Retail, Education, MicroFinance and the Indian language web.”

Google has been active in India through various programmes such as the Launchpad Accelerator and the Launchpad events, and it has developed a very local high touch engagement programme for a growing number of Indian startups that are building solutions to solve for critical challenges of India.

Google had launched its accelerator programme by the name Launchpad Accelerator to provide mentorship, training and support to mobile startups in India, Brazil and Indonesia in 2015. Through the programme, Google had also provided up to $50K in equity-free funding.

Google is not the first tech giant thats boosting the Indian startup ecosystem. Enterprise software company Oracle also has the Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator Programme in India. UC Berkeley, in collaboration with startup incubator and makerspace IKP Eden, also launched a medtech accelerator in Bengaluru. Microsoft is also running a global Accelerator programme in India and it has also partnered with Accenture Ventures to support startups in the growth-stage that create solution for enterprise.

With India being at the centre of attention, no doubt, startups are now increasingly gaining momentum to raise successful ventures. With tech companies like Google, that is coming up with India focussed programmes such as Solve for India, on the task to mentor Indian startups, not only the startups are in for a gain but also, India can now look forward to dissemination of information to nurture the ecosystem to move towards a positive growth.