IIM Bangalore Begins Rural Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme

NSRCEL has high hopes for a newly launched incubation project aimed at the rural sector. NSRCEL is a collaborative start-up for the Buddha Fellowship Programme (BFP) and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM). The Rural Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme aims to support budding rural entrepreneurs. Applications for the programme are now available on the official IIM Bangalore website.

Click here to visit the IIM Bangalore website for further details

The chairperson of NSRCEL, Professor Venkatesh Panchapagesan noted that “Our focus will be to support entrepreneurs already operating in rural areas. Additionally, to provide opportunities for those who want to return to their roots to make an impact…” The start-up, funded by companies like Goldman Sachs and Texas Instruments, has always aimed to support start-ups across the country. The rural entrepreneurship ecosystem stands to be one of its most expansive projects, seeking to mentor 1,000 entities.

Rural development in India has often struggled with geographic isolation, leaving smaller businesses to fade in importance. However, through the programme, rural professionals will become empowered to scale up to the urban market. As an IIM Bangalore representative noted, the “rural entrepreneurship ecosystem and home-grown entrepreneurs have been overlooked and face a lot of scalability challenges. This is due to a lack of knowledge and awareness on marketing, branding, quality standards, value chain creation, product innovation, to name a few.”

Thus, the programme has the mission of transforming the quality and diversity of the Indian development sector. To boost rural businesses, the start-up plans to foster sustainable growth of developmental entrepreneurship in rural India. This will occur through providing both financial and academic support.