Google kickstarted the program in Pune today with a set of local entrepreneurs and will be taken to ten more cities over the course of the year.
Google India is taking a version of its Launchpad Accelerator program to Tier II towns in India through the Solve for India program.
The program was kicked off in Pune today with a set of local entrepreneurs and will be taken to ten more cities over the course of the year. Karthik Padmanabhan, Program Manager Lead for Google India told ET that the company intended to engage with atleast 10,000 entrepreneurs and developers through this initiative.
"In the last eight to 12 months, we've seen a shift in the kind of entrepreneurs who are applying for our Launchpad programs. There's been a lot of interest from entrepreneurs in smaller cities looking at solving Indian problems," he said.
Apart from Pune, this program will cover Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata, Kochi, Indore, Nagpur, Nashik, Madurai and Kanpur. This would be an immersive, community-led program, he said.
One reason for tapping into these cities is the inflection point seen in the use of mobile internet and the increase in demand for Indian language content.
Majority of India's Internet users are Indian language users, and over 80% of them access the Internet from their mobile phones. But the current Indian startup ecosystem is building products for English speaking audience and caters only to 15% of the population.
There are a growing number of entrepreneurs in smaller Indian cities who are focusing on building solutions that caters to the real needs of India.
"Through this initiative we want to bring the best of Google under one program and join forces with them to help create solutions that serves the needs of a billion Indians," said Padmanabhan.
The Solve for India program will provide a platform for entrepreneurs to hear from experts and learn about the latest Google technologies and get access to direct mentoring and support from Google.
Entrepreneurs will get an opportunity to learn directly from Google engineers who will share product usage insights, how to develop mobile first solutions with strong offline and language capabilities and help them to build solutions across areas like agri-tech, healthcare, transportation, education and sanitation, among others.