It has been an extremely exciting month for ATF with the ATF Cohort 3 program proving to be a stupendous success.
The pall of gloom cast by the pandemic simply melted away when we reviewed the tremendous response received for our Cohort 3 program applications. Nearly 100 aspiring disability start-ups applied for our Cohort 3 program, 41 of which were from tier 1 cities, 47 from the tier 2 & 3 segments. We even had 2 international companies sending in their applications to be part of the program. It is more enriching that the applications are diverse in nature, covering all areas of disabilities, impact areas, and are in different stages of their start-up journeys.
Interesting facts about our applicant start-ups:
- 12 of them have existing patents.
- 32 of our potential applicants have operational revenues.
- 24 of them have been part of prior incubator programs.
- 20 of them employ people with disabilities, totally walking the talk.
- Ample representation from all disability segments such as cognitive, hearing, mobility, speech, and vision disability.
Our sincere thanks to all our partners and well-wishers, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras R2D2, IIT Kanpur, Startup India, T-Hub, FICCI, AGNii, I-YwD , Kerala Start-up Mission (KSUM), Millennium Alliance Network, and Social Alpha, for their unwavering support.
ATF will now be reviewing and evaluating all our applicant companies and shortlist 22 of them for presentations to the ATF jury over the course of the next few weeks. The final ATF Cohort 3 start-ups will be announced after our extensive evaluation process – so stay tuned!
We are looking forward to unleashing the full power of technology to meaningfully impact the lives of people with disabilities.