Village Capital To Offer $50K To Indian Entrepreneurs Working On Boosting College Education

A global venture development organisation, Village Capital is inviting applications from Indian entrepreneurs to participate in a mentoring program Village Capital Education: India 2016. It aims to fund and scale ideas that can help improve unprivileged students’ education and enabling them to find jobs.

Funded by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the initiative aims to attract enterprises for a three-month program to help scale and fund their ideas in the college education space for underserved students.

Ross Baird, Executive Director of Village Capital said, “We’re implementing this program to help the next generation in India prosper by helping students complete college and gain the skills necessary for great careers, our entrepreneurs will be helping strengthen the middle class of India and give hope to families across the country.”

The program will select entrepreneurs and impart them with comprehensive, entrepreneur coaching program curriculum, receive one-on-one mentorship from leaders in the field and get opportunities to network with potential strategic partners and investors.

At the end of the program, top two participants will be selected by their peers in the group, and will receive $50K from VilCap Investments. The top participants will also be evaluated by Michael & Susan Dell Foundation for a further investment of up to $500K each.

US-based Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF) is an anchor investor in many education technology initiatives.

Prachi Windlass, Director India, Education, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation says, “India needs to increase the number of first-generation college going students and make them career ready. Early-stage entrepreneurs are perfectly placed to address both college and career readiness in an effective and scalable way. The Village Capital program will fulfil the urgent need for proper mentoring support and guidance to help ideate, validate and scale some of these potential, market-transforming companies.”

Who Can Apply?

• In order to be eligible to apply to the Village Capital Education, entrepreneurs will have to present solutions that can enable underserved Indian students to have access to quality coaching, information about scholarships, financial resources, information on college courses, access to supplementary resources, information, and training & improved reading and learning levels for students completing graduation
• The enterprises will also needs to have a functioning core team, a reasonably well established set up and an interest in raising $500K-$1000K

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