TSIC’s i2E Lab spreading entrepreneurship to Tier II cities
i2E Lab is created to create more opportunities to experiment and be a platform for early stage ideas.
Hyderabad: Startups have largely been an urban phenomenon. With an intent to encourage innovations from Tier II and III cities, Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC), the apex body for innovations in the State, together with Make Room India, a pioneer in social innovation ecosystem, co-created Innovation to Entrepreneurship (i2E) Lab, a four-month pre-incubation programme. The first batch has graduated and efforts are on now to launch the second cohort this month. It will shortlist 15 ideas from the applications into businesses.
i2E Lab is developed to create more opportunities to experiment and be a platform for early stage ideas. It accepts both tech and non-tech ideas from Tier 2 and 3 centers. In the first cohort, there were 12 startups from Telangana, Karnataka and other States of India. These focused on solving issues related to traffic, mental health, air pollution, affordable farm mechanisation, agriculture and sustainability using technology.
Spread over four months, it uses Government’s support through TSIC and Make Room India’s experience of building social innovations since 2016. The participants get access to mentors, prototyping labs and funds. Given the pandemic situation, the programme will offered in a virtual mode.
Pranav Hebbar, Founder and Head, Make Room India and Programme Director of i2E Lab, said the selected teams spend about a month in understanding the problem and context nexus, meet relevant stakeholders and gather data to build solutions. Next two months are devoted for building products, prototypes, meeting prospective customers and iterating. They are exposed to team building, business finance, pitching and storytelling in the last month of the module.
“i2E Lab aims to make Telangana a hub for problem-solvers”, Annie Vijaya, Head – Sustainability Office, TSIC, told Telangana Today.
Eight startups graduated in June 2021 and two of them have got NIDHI Prayas grants to build prototypes. Three startups have won incubation offers with seed funding and three more are in pilot discussion with the State government departments. So far, i2E Lab catalysed over Rs 80 lakh in funding and over Rs 25 Lakh in market access. i2E will continue supporting startups for another year in strategy, fundraising, pilot and other advisory services.
“We are in business-government space. The mentors helped us understanding how the ecosystem works. We are working with the TSIC team to pilot our solution,” said Arun Kumar V, Co-Founder and CEO, UrbanBrain Technologies, which is working in the area of traffic.
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