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Facebook announces initiatives, expands programs for India startups

Facebook also hosted India Startup Awards to recognize work from India's startup ecosystem and awarded winners in five categories including.

Facebook today announced new initiatives and expansions in existing programs for the growing startups ecosystem in India. The social media giant reaffirmed its commitment to offer support to more entrepreneurs and startups through its programs.

Speaking at Facebook India Startup Day, a forum to bring the ecosystem together, Satyajeet Singh, head of Platform Partnerships, Facebook India and South Asia says, “We believe when startups flourish, India will prosper. At Facebook we are committed to paving the way for the success of the new generation of startups in India and understand that access to resources, people and networks can be a powerful catalyst for their growth. That's why we are creating programs that can fuel startups to build businesses of tomorrow through mentoring, regular trainings, workshops and meetups.”

“Within this year, we have worked with over 200 startups through our programs - India Innovation Hub, SheLeadsTech and Code for the Next Billion, to help them build better products and grow their businesses. Our initiatives seek to empower India's vibrant startup ecosystem; be it helping startups with the use of emerging technologies like AR/VR, giving women-led startups the right channels, or supporting companies that are building solutions for social impact,” Satyajeet Singh adds.

Facebook announces initiatives, expands programs for India startups

Facebook is also nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit of students with its first batch of School of Innovation program of 10 student teams building their VR ideas into working product prototypes.

Facebook further announced that it is expanding efforts to include more cities and aspiring entrepreneurs, and outlined ways it would be supporting startups in the coming year:

SheLeadsTech Roadshow: Facebook's flagship program for women-led startups, SheLeadsTech will see more organized efforts in Tier II cities via SheLeadsTech Roadshow, a movement to inspire more women to think technology and entrepreneurship, and convert their ideas into startups.

Setting up three innovation hubs: Facebook will collaborate with co-working spaces in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru to set up community hubs called Innovation Hubs, that will seek to foster innovation by hosting mentor hours and trainings for startups.

Will double its reach via Developer Circles: India is home to one of the largest developer and startup communities, and we have been working to create a network of developers. Through Developer Circles we provide developers a platform to connect and collaborate , and encourage community learning and coding via local meet ups and online groups.

Facebook also hosted India Startup Awards to recognize work of India's startup ecosystem and awarded winners in five categories including:

Award: She Leads Tech - to recognize the most successful tech startup launched and or led by a woman founder or co-founder

Winner: Greenway Grameen, a startup that designs and distributes life-improving products amongst low-income markets.

Award: Building for the World: to recognize a company that has seen success outside India and are working on solutions that are being used on a global scale

Winner: Nanoclean, a company that produces affordable bio safe nanofibers with its proprietary polymer technology.

Award: Building for Tomorrow: to award a startup using emerging technologies such as AR/VR to reinvent how business and society can come up with solutions

Winer: Scapic, a platform that lets people create, share and explore immersive experiences and helps users to build Virtual, Augmented or Mixed Reality content easily.

Award: Building for the Next Billion to recognize startups developing and implementing solutions for social, cultural and environmental issues in India.

Winner: Aye Finance, a startup with a mission of transforming micro and small enterprise lending in India by providing inclusive finance at affordable price to this ‘missing middle’.

Award: Community Builder to recognize startups that are building solutions to support the developer startup community in India

Winner: Hasura, a platform that helps developers build, develop and scale their apps. It has instant APIs for rapid development, and it helps create a to-do app within three minutes.

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