Facebook and T-Hub, which leads India's pioneering innovation ecosystem, today announced the list of selected startups for the second edition of their program "India Innovation Accelerator." Announced in May, the program will support growth of startups focused on finding solutions for social challenges using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in areas of Good Health and Wellbeing, Agriculture, Clean Water and Sanitation, Decent Work and Economic Opportunity, Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure, Climate Change, and Peace and Justice & Strong Institutions.
The program will support the growth of these startups in many ways: a panel of mentors, industry experts, investors, will provide hands-on operational support and mentoring with specialized training on product development, marketing, partnerships, management. Facebook's FBStart will also be available to the selected startups under the aegis of the program and will provide access to technical support, ad credits and credits for tools and services from dozens of premier partners. Furthermore, the cohort startups will have access to T-Hub's ecosystem and PwC India's industry experts to scale their businesses.
Speaking on the occasion, Manish Chopra, Head and Director of Partnerships, Facebook India, said "At Facebook, we believe Artificial Intelligence will be key to finding disruptive solutions to address societal challenges like access, affordability, and skill shortage. We are excited to champion the next generation of tech startups applying AI for social good and accelerate their development by giving them access to expertise."
Ravi Narayan, CEO, T-Hub, said, "Startups that are focused on solving social challenges need all the help they can get in terms of great technical support, market access, and industry connects. The India Innovation Accelerator program by Facebook in partnership with T-Hub offers such support to the best startups in this space that are using AI. I commend Facebook for this pioneering effort."
The final cohort of 10 AI startups was selected from over 140 applications received from across India and after an exciting pitch session held at Facebook Office in Gurgaon. The participants were reviewed based on the quality of technology-based solutions, product/solution market readiness and social impact among other relevant parameters.
The 10 cohort startups include:
- ftcash aims to empower micro-merchants and small businesses with the power of credit using digital payments.
- StaTwig is building blockchain-based solutions to ensure that every child is vaccinated with high-quality vaccines.
- Signzy has built a digital trust infrastructure which enables completely secure digital onboarding using the following three products: Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted onboarding (RealKYC), Algorithmic Risk Intelligence (ARI), Blockchain technology to store and verify consumer information.
- Blue Sky Analytics is a geospatial data intelligence startup, leading the fight against air pollution, water crisis, and environmental degradation by building a stack of environmental indicators.
- Pensieve aims to democratize legal data and make it accessible to the common man. They do this through two tools - Mitra (providing access to judicial cases and an AI algorithm that provides the most relevant responses) and Smriti (enabling people to build, amend, review and analyse their contracts)
- Greenturn Idea Factory helps enterprises reduce energy spends through realtime data-driven insights from their IoT based analytics platform, Greenie.
- Sensegrass deploys Smart Soil Sensing NPK Sensors for pesticide and fertilizers detection using IoT and AI algorithm-based prediction software to help farmers by transferring real-time for better decision making, reduce fertilizers and to maximize crop yield.
- Marut Drones uses AI-powered computer vision to identify the mosquito infestation and hyacinth growth in urban ponds. Based on the information, repellents are sprayed to safeguard localities from various diseases caused by mosquitos.
- Shortlist Professionals is helping enterprises in recruiting through their platform that screens candidates using predictive chat-based interviews and online competency-based assessments, letting employers skip these stages altogether and hire candidates based on demonstrated skill, not just what's on their CV.
- Innerhour provides access to psychological tools and services through their emotional health app which helps in fighting the stigma and lack of access to qualified professionals in the mental health space.
