Atal Innovation Mission, AWS and UIncept EdTech Accelerator Present the All India EdTech Challenge and Master Class Series

December 2^nd 2021, New Delhi: Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Global EdTech Accelerator - UIncept have joined hands to organise the ‘All India EdTech Challenge and Master Class Series’ for early and advanced stage EdTech founders. This initiative is an extension to the Statement of Intent (SoI) signed between NITI Aayog and Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL)* in March, 2021.

This initiative aims to nurture EdTech companies and startups who are in pre and post minimum viable product (MVP) stages by identifying potential industry gaps, exploring mergers and acquisitions, talent sourcing and pooling, and decoding venture capital and investor mind-set while exploring industry, academia and government connections. The new initiative will support EdTEch start-ups with the best industry resources and expertise and funding. AIM, AWS EdStart & UIncept will together identify gaps in the EdTech sector, nurture EdTech startups through the expert Master Class series, and provide them exposure to business fundamentals with the aim of eventually getting them ready for pitching and fundraising.

The key mentors for the EdTech Challenge and Master Class series include professionals and industry leaders such as Parag Mankeekar (Neeti Solutions), Jason Leon (Mentor-NITI Aayog, Co-Founder- QtPi) , Arijit Bhattacharya (World Leader Summit), among others.

The challenge will have two tracks:

• Pre MVP/EdTech Idea-Factory challenge: An All-India challenge for existing and aspiring EdTech entrepreneurs.
• Post MVP Scale Factory Challenge: Aimed to bring existing EdTech entrepreneurs closer to universities, schools, venture capital firms and policymakers, and enable funding opportunities.

This six-month long challenge and master class series will:

• Identify EdTech industry gaps and clearly define clear problem statements in the last mile.
• Identify potential pre and post MVP startups to participate in the challenge
• Conduct focussed sessions on product-market fit, go-to-market strategy, legal, customer discovery, business fundamentals and more.
• Conduct business meetings, expert hours, pitch sessions, demo and pitch days.

Flagging off the challenge, Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director – Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog said “The EdTech Startup Challenge and Master Class Series 2021 will act as an ecosystem booster for early and advanced stage startups and entrepreneurs where they can showcase their products to India and beyond. The challenge will truly be one of its kind which will amalgamate experience and mentorship to help the future EdTech enablers.”

“The EdTech segment in India provides unique and challenging problem statements, and offers a vast scope of innovation. Our collaboration with UIncept for the All India EdTech Challenge and MasterClass Series is based on our commitment to support EdTech startups to develop innovative and scalable solutions using cloud computing technology. Over the years, AWS EdStart has helped create a community of like-minded people and companies who seek to solve complex education problems globally, and we will draw upon this rich experience and knowledge to enable EdTech entrepreneurs in India build the next-generation of education solutions on the cloud, and provide them access to peer learning, customized trainings, mentoring and technical support to translate their innovative ideas into reality,” said Sunil PP, Lead – Education, Space and Non-Profits, India and South Asia, Amazon Internet Services Private Limited.

In line with the drive of nurturing the EdTech startups at an early stage, Mr. Manish Gupta, Founder & Chief Mentor, UIncept added, “ The highest failure rates are seen within the idea stage of a startup before they are incorporated. Some of the leading reasons why Indian startups fail within the first five years are lack of innovation, sufficient skills, and a ready talent pool. Therefore there’s a need to nurture these aspiring entrepreneurs early on their journey with the right ecosystem and provide resources so that they go on to launch successful startups, and we are glad to have the support of AWS through its AWS EdStart program. We have always been very clear about supporting the young entrepreneurs by creating a global ecosystem of stakeholders.”    

AWS EdStart, the AWS educational technology (EdTech) startup accelerator, is designed to help entrepreneurs build the next generation of online learning, analytics, and campus management solutions on the AWS Cloud. The AWS EdStart program, with its range of benefits, resolves many of the early stage challenges for EdTech entrepreneurs via promotional credits, technical training, community and marketing support and mentorship