An Initiative by Microsoft and Accenture to Help startups through Technology

In the month of October, Microsoft and Accenture announced to launch an initiative in common, to give a hand to startups that are struggling to find solutions for the serious turbulences in their businesses in regard with the sustainability and skilling.

At first, the concerned people in the program put those startups at the center of attention which deal with difficulties in agriculture, education and healthcare areas, and help them to build scalable solutions and business models, providing them with technology support.

Lathika Pai, Country Head Microsoft for Startups, MENA & SAARC stated that "accelerated by the pandemic, social enterprises are reimagining how they can widen the reach and deepen that impact through technology. Our collaboration with Accenture will help startups scale their solutions quickly and drive meaningful and measurable impact."

Microsoft Research India and Accenture Labs will help social enterprise startups test and validate proof-of-concepts, conduct design thinking sessions to help entrepreneurs re-envision the impact of their solutions, and provide support in exploring and using Microsoft technologies, through this initiative.

As Sanjay Podder, managing director and Technology Innovation lead for ASIAM, Greater China and Japan at Accenture expressed, "by expanding the focus of our joint initiative to encompass startups that have innovative and disruptive solutions in these areas, we can help scale the impact to improve how people live and work," 

According to the companies, startups applying for the programme are required to have deployed their solutions and have early signs of impact.

As the both companies stated, it is required that the startups which apply for the program "have deployed their solutions and have early signs of impact."

The first group of startups taken part in the program, were supported by Microsoft and Accenture with technology resources and mentoring to scale their solutions; they had concentrated on defeating the challenges in the areas of food safety, livelihood, and education.

The Centre for Aquatic Livelihood Jaljeevika and Akshaya Patra Foundation were out of those startups who applied and participated in the program.