mPower Forum envisions to encourage social entrepreneurship in the use of mobile phone as ICT tool for development by helping innovative ideas to grow in terms of social relevance & commercial sustenance; to create an ecosystem of entrepreneurship development in mobile for masses, started from incubation and nurturing to growth and acceleration.
mPower Forum to set up a platform to give a start, to nurture and to encourage innovative ideas with funding and mentoring support toward continuous development of value added product and service having higher economic returns & larger social impact.
As an incubation and acceleration centre mPower Forum offers early stage funding/ second stage funding support and mentoring; a place to grow and expand through its triggered nurturing and keep-in-touch nurturing programmes.
- Triggered nurturing : timely event, round tables, periodic meetings for idea sharing
- Keep-in-touch nurturing: needful infrastructure support and mentorship support throughout the incubation period
mPower Forum through its mentorship programme provides mentoring support from the knowledgeable and inspiring experts from the industry and also from the Grand Jury panel of Manthan Award South Asia and mBillionth Award.
The Mentoring process starts with vetting entrepreneurs in the mobile application and content domain, both fresh ideas and innovative startups, selecting them on the basis of a workable, viable business plan, offering them mentoring by industry veterans, incubation office space, with networking infrastructure for testing the ideas, working on the business models, with complete legal, secretarial and other office support paraphernalia, and eventually help to ‘go to market’.
Aims & Objectives:
- To create a group of innovators inspiring mobile innovations to address the basic and specific issues of the society;
- To ensure Learning based on the shared methods of solving the problem;
- Transformation of ideas into surface level – user tested applications;
- Nurturing by the different pathways adopted in the concept of mPower Forum;
- Acceleration through end – to – end support to all incubatees for two years’ period of Incubation.
- To ensure the short term/ long term impact upon the beneficiaries using the application
- To ensure marketability and sustainability of the idea
mPower Forum – Categories
mPower Forum invites innovatve ideas in the following categories:
- Health
- Agriculture
- Financial inclusion
- Employment generation & livelihood
- Education & Learning
- Entertainment
- Commerce
- Information/Knowledge (News & Journalism)
- Women
- Citizen Centric
mPower Forum – Process [Modus Operandi]:
The – mPower Forum Process or mode of operation follows these steps:
- Selection of the Incubatee
- Fund Support to the Incubatee
- Fund Support (Infrastructural and other monetary support)
[Potential early stage funding / or second stage funding]
- Fund Support (Infrastructural and other monetary support)
- Nurturing the Incubatee / Mentorship
- Triggered Nurturing (organizing timely event, round tables, meetings for idea sharing)
- Keep – in – Touch Nurturing (mentorship support throughout the incubation period)
- Go – to – Market Acceleration Process: This starts from the idea – testing in the lab to the launch of the mobile app in the market to be used by the customers
