India: Samāvesh Women Entrepreneurship Program (WEP-1.0)

WEP-1.0 is envisaged as the primary cohort of online pitch events organized by TECHIN and GSCoE specifically focused on promoting women’s entrepreneurship in the WASH domain. This event is meant to enable women-supportive ecosystems that provide new opportunities for women in income-generating roles and in community leadership positions through innovative WASH technological solutions. This pitch event seeks innovative WASH solutions that are in Technology Readiness Level (TRL)-5 and above.

The applications will be reviewed by a team of experts, and a list of selected teams for the first round of pitching will be announced. This round involves both mentoring and pitching. Successful candidates in this round will advance to the final pitching round.

Winning women entrepreneurs of the final round may be awarded a grant up to Rs 20 lakhs. The exact grant for each winning team will be determined based on the declared need of the selected team and the recommendations of the evaluators.

Themes

• Cleaning technologies for Better Hygiene
• Improved Menstrual Hygiene Products
• Smart Toilet Technologies
• Nature-based Solutions (NbS)
• IoT applications in sanitation

Problem Statements

• W1.01 (Cleaning technologies for Better Hygiene): Products that achieve higher personal, household and occupational hygiene. These could be products for better hand hygiene, cleaning solutions for use in households, workplaces, hospitals etc.
• W1.02 (Improved Menstrual Hygiene Products): Products that improve personal menstrual hygiene levels including sanitary pads and other menstrual products as well as help improve the efficient and sustainable management of menstrual hygiene.
• W1.03 (Smart Toilet Technologies): Technologies that provide improved user experience in toilets, help achieve improved hygiene and women-centric sanitation challenges, better operation and maintenance, aid in cleaning/sanitization of toilets and other sanitary appliances.
• W1.04 (Nature-based Solutions (NbS): Nature-based technologies for sewage and greywater management.
• W1.05 (IoT applications in sanitation): Applications of IoT for improved sanitation and hygiene, health monitoring, hygiene monitoring, and other associated applications.

Incubation at TECHIN includes

• Mentoring by world-class mentors, faculty, entrepreneurs, including PAN IIT network.
• Incubation program for fine-tuning the business model canvas, technical and business aspects to cross the valleys of death and achieve success in the startup world.
• Incubation space with connectivity.
• Access to State-of-the-art fabrication and rapid prototyping facilities.
• Access to consultants for legal, financial, IP, and business aspects.
• Funding for incubation and go-to-market strategy.
• An opportunity to pitch to Angels and Venture Capitalists.
• Connections to NGOs and Government agencies for field site testing.

For more information, visit Technology Innovation Foundation of IIT Palakkad (TECHIN).