The Plustrust Microincubation Process

The incubation support for start-ups exist in the urban areas and metro especially for youth with education and exposure to technology. However, such a supportive environment is lacking particularly for women, in rural resource-poor communities. This widening gap in the incubation and start-up ecosystem can only be addressed by ground-up, grassroots level interventions with a special focus on women.

Addressing the Exclusion of Aspiring Rural Women Changemakers

Plustrust decided to address this situation in 2015 and began work by introducing fellowships for Rural Women Edupreneurs (RWEs) and Return to Roots (R2R) fellowships in 2020 in response to the COVID crisis. Our approach is clearly focused on a woman’s individual agency and her aspirations for leading change in her community.

The Path Ahead: Expansion, Innovation and Knowledge Creation

Driven by this aim and building the movement for supporting microincubation locally, Plustrust began expanding its reach and commenced its operations virtually under the leadership of Priyanshi Sharma, Hub and Programme Manager, Udaipur Rajasthan. The hub offered fellowships to 23 women in 5 states across India in 2019 and gradually lead to the emergence of our local anchor network.

Building on the experience we launched the Plustrust Caring Friends Adda in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh in 2021.

The Adda is managed by Vasudha Kapoor, former Rural Women Edupreneur and Co-founder, Mera Gaon Meri Dunia. The hub has already mentored its first batch of 10 young entrepreneurial minds and 6 of them are working towards the betterment of their communities. 

We are now in the process of launching a physical hub in Udaipur, Rajasthan, Faizabad, Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh and Muzaffarpur, Bihar within the next 3 months.

Purpose

The Plustrust Adda or hub is emerging as an innovative space for aspiring changemakers, to interact with like-minded people, share ideas, involve in debates and discussions with mentors, fellowship alumni and fellows. The Addas also provide a platform for the changemakers to run fundraising and other campaigns, share their work with a larger audience and provide access to relevant learning and technology and local and national partnerships.

Outcome

The hubs are finding collaborators such as local NGOs and national organisations who are interested in replicating the fellowship model to strengthen their own work and build local capacity . This approach has led to collaborations for new programs like the Community Health Entrepreneurs (CHE)  program for home and community-based diagnostics and health care. Similarly, local organisations such as Mera Gaon Meri Dunia, Vidhyalaya Udhyam, and Awadh Peoples Forum, Samanta Foundation, are integrating our fellowship model in their operations and functioning as Plustrust anchors as well.

Goal

With this approach, we have been able to reach out to 60 RWEs, 23 R2Rs fellows, 23 CHEs, and 7 Coaching Fellows for March 2022. The mission for March 2024  is to offer 180-200 fellowships per year by establishing 6 Addas (hubs) with 20 anchors, 10 collaborations, and 10 partnerships. We expect the hubs will become independent entities within  5 years.