Facebook has announced that it will be launching three additional innovation hubs in India by the end of next year. Its first innovation hub in India was set up in Hyderabad in partnership with T-Hub. The social media giant is now looking for similar tie-ups in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru to set up innovation hubs there.
Over the past year, Facebook has mentored 200 startups across industries and is looking to increase this number in 2019.
Facebook on Tuesday said it aims to boost its efforts to expand the start-up ecosystem in India, reiterating its commitment to widen its support to include technology entrepreneurs in different cities.
"We are committed to paving the way for the success of the new generation of start-ups in India and understand that access to resources, people and networks can be a powerful catalyst for their growth," said Facebook's Satyajeet Singh, the head of Platform Partnerships for India and South Asia.
India is the world's third largest start-up hub and has one of the fastest growing base of software developers.
"Our initiatives seek to empower India's start-up ecosystem. Be it helping them with the use of emerging technologies like Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, giving women-led start-ups the right channels or supporting companies that are building solutions for social impact," Singh told reporters here.
Hence, the social media giant is creating programmes that can spur the entrepreneurs to build businesses of tomorrow through mentoring, regular training, workshops and meet-ups, Singh said.
Facebook said its first batch of 10 people at the School of Innovation has built its virtual reality ideas into working product prototypes, which will be showcased in 2019.
"So far this year, we have worked closely with over 200 start-ups through our programmes such as India Innovation Hub, SheLeadsTech and Code for the Next Billion," Singh said.