Cardano Accelerator for India

[IMPACT]

Our offering can be dividend into the following

• Free Product Development Support.
• Finding passionate entrepreneurs.
• Connecting the entrepreneurs with right kind of business mentors who can support them to build the business.
• Provide the entrepreneurs with marketing support through media and partnerships.
• Train young talents on Cardano and source it to the entrepreneurs

Product Development Support

• Basic offering will be NFT market place, custodial and non-custodial wallet. Since it resonates with real world use cases.
• We will be providing it in the form of APIs, UI, UX which is Multi-lingual, White labelled, With custom process flows & Multi-level access control.

Finding passionate entrepreneurs.

• In our first intake we will be taking 5 passionate entrepreneurs into our program.
• We have already engaging with few founders.

Business Mentorship

• Regular engagement with established startup founders with the founders of the accelerator program.
• This will provide them better knowledge from a business perspective which they might be lacking.

Partnership with government and non government organizations along with media coverage.

• Partnerships and media coverage is key part of our program

Training Young Talents

• Once the business picks up one of the key challenge is to build the right team. It is extremely challenging in India to find employable developers

(Only 3.84 per cent of engineers in the country have the technical, cognitive and linguistic skills required for software-related jobs in startups)

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/the-growth-catalyst/how-to-address-indias-unemployability-problem/

I am already part of multiple startup communities. And we could be the official web3 partner for few.

Key Challenges Addressed

• Onboarding 5 founders and provide them the technology support to launch their MVP on Cardano. This will enable to test various India specific use case.
• By training around 30 developers in India on Cardano. Will be improving the number of quality developers on Cardano.
• Getting media coverage and PR for the 5 applications. This will help Cardano to get noticed among the general public.
• Connecting with business mentors from India to give guidance. This will help Cardano to get noticed among the business community.
• Engagement with 10 government/non-government established organizations. If successful can scaleup the community model to various colleges across India.

• Creating proper awareness regarding the benefits of web3 over web2 to people who lack the knowledge.
• Other key challenge will be working with the government and other organizations will be that there is a resistance for change. This can only be overcome by communicating the benefits in a layman term.
• We also look to get financial support from various organizations, government and the startup community for onboarding the next batch of startups.

[FEASIBILITY]

We want to work with 5 entrepreneurs who have India specific web3 based ideas to launch their initial version of the product. And if the business is successful help them to build a team to sustain their business.

Stage 1 (First Two Weeks)

• Select 5 entrepreneurs with India specific ideas. Few have already approached us with their idea. Preference will be given to simple but localized ideas.
• Onboard mentors for business mentorship.
• Onboard trainers and training materials to train students.

Stage 2 (First Month)

• Build the product. We already have a inhouse tech team and will be supporting the entrepreneurs build the product within a month.
• Onboard students to train and engage them with the community.

Stage 3 (Second Month)

• Test the product. Carry out test, iterate and gain feedback for the product from a closed loop community.
• Carry out partnership with government and non-government organization, along with media for sales and marketing initiatives.

Stage 4 (Third Month)

• Launch the product. After completing the marketing initiatives and building the community. We expect entrepreneurs to run and promote their business.

Final Stage

• Empower all students to be independent on web3 through training and provide them in starting venture or get a job.
• Once the entrepreneur had found the product market fit we help them to build the tech team with the students we have trained in house.

Cost of technical development for basic infra is expected to be $15000

• Development of basic infra without customized flow. This includes NFT market place with custodial wallets and multi-level access control.

Product Managers, Marketers, Content writers, Coaches to train and develop the MVP and the team is expected to be $40000.

• We already have onboarded 20+ mentors and look to onboard 100 by the end of accelerator
• We will be training around 30 interns and might scale it to 50 based on the feasibility. (750 manhours of training)

For partnering up and marketing initiatives for these startups to get visibility. We will be spending $5000 to market the initiative

Full-time members:

Nicky Jacob

Cofounder thetokenlist.com and Paysack.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickyjacob

Engineer, 10+ years of experience in entrepreneurship, product management and business development.

And prior venture Kred, was aimed at creating financial inclusion for underserved in India by offering various financial services to cooperatives in India. And was backed by Barclays Bank Accelerator powered by Techstars

Was part of global accelerators : SOSV - Ireland, Techstars Barclays - Israel, Startup Village, Nasscom 10K startups, Spark10, Mumbai Fintech Hub, Startup Village, Kerala Startup Mission and few others

Sachin TS

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachin-t-s-2768411b4

Full stack developer, 2+ years of experience in developing solutions in web3

Jimshad

Frontend developer, 1+ years of experience in developing solutions in web3

Trainers (Part Time)

Ricky Jacob : Cofounder TRDR.money, paysack.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickyjacob

PhD in location based services, Ex team lead google maps, 15+ years of combined experience

Rajat Talwar

https://www.linkedin.com/in/talwarrajat

Full stack developer, Ex Amazon Engineer 10+ experience in developing scalable codes.

Richmond Chethalan

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcheth

Masters in Cyber security with 5+ years of experience in financial services

Sreenadh H

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreenadhh

Full stack developer with 10+ years of experience.

Mentor Network

Includes various founders and CXOs (For business interaction and feedback)

George  https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgepanamkuzha

Thanuj Sinha https://www.linkedin.com/in/sinhatanuj

Nabarun Chakrabortty https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabarunchakrabortty

Shamsu https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamsudheentr

and few others have been lined-up

[AUDITABILITY]

• Number of startups onboarded.
• Number of startups launching their MVP.
• Number of developers trained.
• Gitlab commits.
• Articles on popular online tech media.
• Number of new community members joined.
• Partnership (formal or informal) with existing startup government or non-government community.

• 5 startup launching their MVP on Cardano
• Training 30+ developers to build on top of Cardano
• Get featured in 3+ online tech media
• Get minimum one major startup community to vouch for the program officially or unofficially

This is a new proposal and my first submission.

SDG Rating

SDG 4 - Quality Education

SDG 8 - Descent Work and Economic Growth