Incubating Resilience with Shine Program – India

They strongly believe in the power of entrepreneurship to catalyse change and address societal challenges at scale. The Shine programme nurtures social entrepreneurs who offer innovative, market-based solutions to problems related to natural hazards, climate risk and healthcare access.

The winning applicant undergoes an immersive learning programme, that brings them together with a diverse, skilled team of top talents from Swiss Re to develop a strategic, financially viable business plan. After the entrepreneur completes the programme’s four modules over six months, the Swiss Re Foundation continues to support their progress in scaling up their solution and assessing their impact.

Shine is a remarkable opportunity for founders of social enterprises not only to realise their vision of a more resilient world, but also to grow professionally and personally.

Programme Structure

• Phase 1: Application process for selecting the social innovator
  • The submitted applications will be evaluated, and shortlisted entrepreneurs will be interviewed to select a winner who will enter the Action Learning Programme along with a cohort of Swiss Re employees.
  • The winner will also receive the Shine Social Innovator Award including a grant of INR 500 000.
• Phase 2: Action Learning Programme
  • The social innovator will team up with Swiss Re employees and go through an accredited Action Learning Programme facilitated in collaboration with the partner BOOKBRIDGE. During this immersive six-month journey, the innovator along with Swiss Re employees will together define problem areas for the business, engage with target communities, design and test solution prototypes and develop a viable business plan. They will then pitch this plan to the Shineʼs Investment Committee of experts with the aim to earn an additional grant of INR 1500000.

What Shine offers to social innovators?

• Hands-on support in developing a focused strategy and viable financial and execution plan
• Access to diverse experts from Swiss Re businesses and functions
• Business mentoring and leadership coaching to accelerate the professional and personal development of the enterprise founder(s)
• Financial grant of up to INR 2 000 000 to scale the solution
• Connections and visibility in the social entrepreneurial ecosystem

Who should apply? 

• Focus areas
  • Applicants’ impact areas must be aligned with one of the Swiss Re Foundation’s supported topics:
    • Transformation to Net-Zero (renewable energy, afforestation, recycling etc)
    • Access to nutrition
    • Access to health
    • Climate-smart agriculture
    • Disaster risk management
• Innovation
  • Applicants must display nuanced understanding of a social challenge in one of the focus areas and an innovative, scalable solution to addressing it.
• Maturity
  • Applicants must be early-stage enterprises that have an established proof of concept for their solution and are looking to accelerate their growth.
• Mission and purpose
  • Applicants must have a strong sense of purpose combined with an impact-focused mindset. They need to also have the willingness to take part in a learning programme that spans six months.

For more information, visit Swiss Re Foundation.