Deadline: 31-Jul-22
The Venture Center and Cummins India Foundation have announced the Call for Cummins CSR Grant.
Venture Center and Cummins India Foundation have teamed up to support entrepreneurs / start ups working on technologies in energy and environment domain and generating potential social impact
Objectives
- To support technology incubation and technology entrepreneurs associated with Venture Center, an incubator approved by the Central Government (DST-NSTEDB and DBT – BIRAC of Ministry of Science and Technology).
- Promote application of modern/advanced technologies to socio-economic problem solving
Focus Areas
- The areas which will be considered for grant are called as key focus areas and are listed down as follows
- Energy & Environment
- Energy efficiency
- Renewable energy
- Air pollution
- Provisions for drinking water
- Waste management
- Alternative Energy
- Environment Clean tech
- Biomass utilization etc…
Scope
- Cummins CSR Grant will enable an entrepreneur / startup to do field testing / conducting pilot studies and adoption of appropriate technologies to address social needs.
- Without limiting scope unduly, the projects and technology entrepreneurs chosen shall be:
- Focused on a leveraging science and technology/ inventions
- Focused on building a sustainable and scalable entrepreneurial venture
- Theme of Energy & Environment ( eg : energy efficiency, renewable energy, air pollution, provisions for drinking water, waste management etc.)
- There shall be no restriction on the background of the entrepreneur. However, preference may be given to:
- Women entrepreneurs
- Startups with validated technology addressing problems related to Energy and Environment
- Social enterprises
- Any other criteria suggested by the Project Oversight Committee (POC)
Funding Information
- The maximum support that can be provided per project is upto Rs. 5 lakhs
- Duration of the project should be only upto 6 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- The project needs to define a technology solution to a well-defined problem
- The technology should be innovative/ novel
- Project should be focused on implementing a technology / conducting pilot studies.
- Eligibility of Applicants and Project Leaders for projects
- Every project proposal will need to identify a Project Leader and an Applicant/ Grantee
- The Project Leader (PL) will be an individual who will take responsibility for executing the project.
- The Applicant or Grantee can be either of the following:
- Case 1: Applicant is an individual
- Case 2: Applicant is a company
- PL has to be an individual (one person).
- PL is required to be at least 18 years of age as on the date of call for applications.
- PL is required to be Indian Citizen. An Indian citizen is defined as one who is in possession of a government approved proof of nationality such as a valid passport, voter’s id etc. Exceptional cases of foreign nationals with potential for impact in India will be considered.
- PL has to pursue the project or startup full time with no other concurrent commitments during the project duration.
- PL cannot be pursuing a long-term academic/research project (like doctoral students) with significant obligations during the project duration.
- PL must have completed basic undergraduate training in natural sciences/engineering/ medicine. Essential qualification is PhD/ MTech/ BTech/ BPharm /MD/ MBBS/ BDS/ MSc / MPhil/ M Des/ MPH /MBA / MSW and equivalents, with under‐ graduate training in Science, Medicine, Engineering. Applicants with a BSc degree with at least 1 year of full-time work or research experience shall also be eligible
- If Applicant is a company, the Company/LLP should be registered under the Indian Companies Act, 1956/2013
- The company should be owned by resident Indian citizens i.e. minimum 51% of the capital is beneficially owned by resident Indian citizen(s) and / or Indian companies, which are ultimately owned and controlled by resident Indian citizens
Ineligibility Criteria
- Pure software development with no IP potential
- Pure academic research
Selection Criteria
- Technical soundness & do ability
- Technology should be at an implementation stage
- Potential for social impact
- Team capabilities & background
- Knowledge intensity or novelty or IP potential
- Execution & commercialization plan
- Exceptional cases may be considered on its merit by the committee
- Any others as decided by the committee
For more information, visit Venture Center.
For more information, visit https://www.venturecenter.co.in/csr/cummins/