Three teams from India are among 16 groups shortlisted from across the world for the Young Social Entrepreneurs (YSE) programme in Singapore where they will undergo training to sharpen their ideas and improve business plans.
The YSE programme of the Singapore International Foundation (SIF) seeks to inspire, equip and enable youth of different nationalities to embark on social enterprises in Singapore and beyond.
The shortlisted teams from India include MySportsCard, an online platform for the growth of sports at the grassroots by an IIM-Bangalore student Abhijeet Bhatt and Saadhan, a for-profit venture of Mohit Dave and Pranav Harshe from Institute of Rural Management, Anand that aims to empower farmers with greater ownership on food value chain to reduce poverty and resource wastage.
Another shortlisted group is Lighting Actually Made Paradisiacal (L.A.M.P) by a joint team of Saravanan Sonia, an Indian-origin student in Singapore and her Singaporean friend Rachel Lim Wan Qi that aims to lighten up the world of slum dwellers in India by providing them with sustainable off-grid electricity sources.
The shortlisted teams, announced at the end of the four-day workshop here in which 52 teams had participated, will undergo an eight-month programme during which they will be mentored to sharpen their ideas and improve business plans, along with study visits, SIF officials said.
The teams will present their final pitch for funding at the end of the programme, tentatively by October.
Speaking about his venture, Abhijeet said, "MySportsCard seeks to provide a platform and community similar to LinkedIn that reaches out to rural areas to connect athletes, teams and professionals in the sports industry to one another as well as relevant resources to provide opportunities for youth to harness their sporting potential."
Explaining about how Saadhan aims to allow farmers to increase their earnings, its co-founder Mohit said, "We seek to source healthy cashew apple from farmers, process them, provide marketing services and create secure supply chains to markets in South Gujarat and North Maharashtra.
