Nokia India launches accelerator for Indian mobile start-ups

Nokia India, in collaboration with mobile application development programme, AppCampus (Finland) and members of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels (India Chapter), has recently announced their initiative, ‘Appcelerate-India’ to boost mobile app development on Nokia Lumia and Windows platform. Appcelerate-India will be a start-up accelerator for the mobile ecosystem.

As per the press release issued by the AppCampus, the company along with Harvard Business School Alumni Angels India will invest in excess of $500,000 in Appcelerate-India and provide a combination of grants, seed funding, mentoring, incubation resources to discover disruptive applications and nurture talented Indian mobile start-ups.

The most promising ideas from the Nokia’s first consumer app reality television show, Your Wish Is My App, as well as submissions from the local ecosystem will be considered for investment and incubation. This initiative combines the best of AppCampus’ global acceleration model with the hands-on mentoring expertise of Appcelerate-India, the release added.

Gerard Rego, Director- Developer Experience, Nokia India said, “At Nokia, our aim is to support Indian app developers to drive path-breaking innovation on our platform. We believe that this will open up countless opportunities to shape the app ecosystem, giving developers the chance to give new and innovative experiences to consumers”.

Pekka Sivonen, Head, AppCampus said, “It’s exciting to build this type of start-up collaboration, tailored for the Indian market, where we truly get to reach developers and start-ups locally and help them evolve into the next Big Thing. This collaboration between AppCampus and Harvard Business Angels can bring significant and sustainable new opportunities for mobile-focused entrepreneurs and their businesses”.

Ravi Gururaj, Co-founder, HBS Alumni Angels India Chapter, said, “We are now seeing a massive spurt in passion from the local ecosystem towards entrepreneurial ventures in mobile products. Through our collaboration with AppCampus and Nokia India, we want to support app entrepreneurs in their development work and create an innovation-led start up culture.”