Mphasis to incubate 26 nonprofits through N/Core

IT company Mphasis and Bengaluru-based nonprofit startup incubator N/Core announced on Tuesday a three-year partnership under which Mphasis will invest over Rs 4.5 crore to incubate upto 26 nonprofit startups. N/Core also announced ten nonprofit startups that they have selected for six-month incubation in their second batch. The cohort is supported by Mphasis, Omidyar Network and DE Shaw & Co. Meenu Bhambhani, head of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Mphasis, said when talent meets funding, amazing things happen. “The technology sector has benefited immensely by investing in top talent to drive innovation. At Mphasis, we believe that this way of thinking should apply to CSR too. This collaboration with N/Core helps us to make a meaningful difference in solving challenging problems in the social sector.”

The organisations selected for N/Core’s second cohort were picked from a pool of 1,177 applications at a 0.8% selection rate. The applicants include graduates from top educational institutions and 60% of the organizations selected for incubation have women co-founders.

One of the selected nonprofits, BillionBricks, which builds PowerHYDE, is the world’s first solar home for the homeless which finances itself by the energy it produces and sells. Anthill Creations mobilises communities to create low-cost and sustainable playscapes for children from scrap tyres and recycled material. Another nonprofit, Mijini Research, is building an urban financial intelligence platform (UFIP) – a cloud based reporting, analytics and scenario planning tool to assess financial performance of urban local bodies.

Each nonprofit will receive an innovation grant of Rs 10 lakh, and will work closely with dedicated mentors.