BENGALURU: French railway solutions major Alstom has collaborated with the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) to help encourage entrepreneurs in the country. As part of Alstom India’s Sustainability Incubation Programme, the company awarded a grant of Rs 1.5 crore to 10 startups being incubated under IIM-B’s NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), particularly those involved in solving problems in the clean energy and shared mobility sectors.
“While we are bringing our vision of sustainable mobility to life through our business, we have also committed to making active social investments to nurture startups who share our vision. On that note, it is heartening to see incredible work done by the selected startups and it has been a delight to partner with NSRCEL-IIMB,” said Alstom India Managing Director Olivier Loison.
NSRCEL COO Anand Sri Ganesh said while several of the intricacies of the climate and sustainability sectors are weakly defined, the crisis of climate change is ongoing.
Climate crisis
“The climate and sustainability spaces are still emerging. Knowledge networks, business models, funding, policy environment – all of these are still weakly defined. Yet we are staring at a crisis in climate change. At NSRCEL, we are committed to injecting innovation to solve these priorities at scale, through the lens of entrepreneurship,” he said.
Of the over 200 applications, 10 startups have been selected to be awarded the grant. These include ones that are working on electric vehicles (EV), charging platforms, drone-based service providers and clean energy solutions. The startups awarded the grant are - MetroRide, Evoride Motors, Volar Alta C/o Drone Tech Solutions, Epick Bikes, ChargeEZ, the Energy Company, Green Tiger Mobility, TrackNerd GPS, Tadpole Projects and Swytchd.