Apple partner Acumen launches cohort to help uplift lives of poor while protecting environment | Business News

Apple joined Acumen earlier this year in an effort to support social enterprises in India to improve livelihoods through clean energy innovation.

The group of entrepreneurs will work on everything from agriculture, e-mobility, and hydropower and provide the enabling technologies needed to maximise energy’s potential to improve livelihoods, Acumen said in a blog post.

“This cohort represents a diverse mix of innovators working at the intersection of sustainable energy and poverty reduction. We are excited to support them in partnership with Apple to develop their business models with the ultimate aim of scaling their impact. We also view this accelerator as an opportunity to gather insights directly from entrepreneurs and further refine and shape our work in this area,” Acumen’s India Director Mahesh Yagnaraman said.

The cohort’s participants, over the next four months, will develop and refine a scalable business model which will have the potential to transform the lives of low-income people while conserving resources and protecting the environment, Acumen said.

The nonprofit further said that the cohort will participate in a blend of virtual learning labs, seminars, and self-directed customer experiments to support the development of their business models and impact. At the end of the programme, they will be invited to pitch to a curated audience of sustainable energy ecosystem stakeholders at a Demo-Day, Acumen said.

After completing the programme, the participants will join The Foundry, Acumen Academy’s global community of over 1300 social innovators to share in a lifelong journey of solving problems of poverty and building a world based on dignity, it said.