- Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment -launched the “Ambedkar Social Innovation and Incubation Mission (ASIIM) under Venture Capital Fund for SCs.
- To promote innovation and enterprise among SC students studying in higher educational institutions.
- Ministry of Social Justice had launched the Venture Capital Fund for SCs (VCF-SC) in 2014-15 with a view to developing entrepreneurship amongst the SC/Divyang youth and to enable them to become ‘job-givers’.
- The Objective of this fund is to provide concessional finance to the entities of the SC entrepreneurs. Under this fund, 117 companies promoted by SC entrepreneurs have been sanctioned financial assistance to set up business ventures.
- Under named “Ambedkar Social Innovation Incubation Mission (ASIIM)”initiative,
○1,000 SC youth would be identified in the next 4 years with start-up ideas through the Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) in various higher educational institutions.
- They will be funded @ Rs. 30 lakhs in 3 years as equity funding so that they can translate their start-up ideas into commercial ventures.
- Successful ventures would further qualify for venture funding of up to Rs. 5 Crore from the Venture Capital Fund for SCs.
- It’s objectives include:
○To promote entrepreneurship among the SC Youth with special preference to Divyangs;
○To support (1,000) innovative ideas till 2024 through a synergetic work with the Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) set up by Department of Science and Technology;
○To support, promote, hand-hold the start-up ideas till they reach commercial stage by providing liberal equity support; and
○To incentivize students with innovative mind-set to take to entrepreneurship with confidence.
