Google launches 'Solving for India' programme for Indian startups

Google India has announced plans to set up a programme 'Solving for India' to mentor startups in India.

The programme seeks to provide high-touch support and mentoring to deploy machine learning/artificial intelligence solutions in India.The company even hosted a four-day mentorship boot camp for ten Indian startups, where founders and their teams participated in one-on-one consults with experts from Google and external mentors.

The boot camp witnessed participation from startups including Nebulaa, Slang Labs, PregBuddy, LegalDesk, PaySack, Vokal, FarMart, Meesho, Pratilipi and M-Indicator.

Speaking about the objective behind launching the programme, Karthik Padmanabhan, Developer Relations Lead, ‎Google India said, “In the last few years, we have seen the growth in entrepreneurial and startup activity that goes beyond the big metros. We’re seeing a whole new generation of entrepreneurs and founders who’re innovating to solve for real challenges across agriculture, healthcare, environment, retail, education, microfinance and the Indian language web. With this programme, our objective is to build a bridge between startups and the industry ecosystem and provide them with the right technology support and mentorship to help them succeed. We shortlisted 10 startups from 160 homegrown startups by traveling across 15 cities in India, and are now ready to scale this pilot as a dedicated programme for India.”

Launched last year as an India-only pilot by Google Developers Launchpad team, ‘Solve for India’ focuses on bringing the best of Google expertise across product, UX/UI and latest technologies including machine learning and AI to help emerging startups that are focusing on building solutions that serves for India’s needs, a company release said.

Speaking about the plans to scale the programme further, Paul Ravindranath G, Program Manager, Launchpad Accelerator, Google India, said, “We have been very active in India with our global flagship mentoring program Launchpad Accelerator and our shorter format Launchpad events, but we realised that we needed a very local, high touch engagement programme for a growing number of Indian startups that are building solutions to solve for critical challenges of India. Through the last ten months, we have focused on building the right mentorship network to support the challenges faced by these startups. And we’re delighted to share that we will be expanding the mentoring support beyond this boot camp, by launching a structured mentorship program for startups who are using machine learning and artificial intelligence to Solve for India, and run this as an ongoing effort."