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12e1 has collaborated with B-ABLE to train 200 micro-entrepreneurs alone in the first month, aims to set up 50K PDOs in the next six months in India

Delhi based start-up i2e1 (Information to everyone), curates India's first digital livelihood focused skill development initiative, impacting 50,000 small businesses in partnership with B-ABLE.

This partnership realizes PM's dream of generating livelihoods through the groundbreaking PM-WANI scheme by training micro-entrepreneurs and helping them set-up their PDOs. B ABLE expertise in training and working with low-income communities and i2e1 simple yet smart technology is making this happen.The program aims to train more than 200 entrepreneurs from Aligarh and Meerut in the first month alone. Training would focus on how to use technology for more efficient and smart way of working. Which should further induce some direct and indirect benefits of digitalization. Later this would be scaled up to 50,000 such small businesses across multiple cities.

Commenting on the initiative, Mr. Satyam Darmora, Founder, i2e1 said, “Our partnership with B-ABLE, is a huge step forward in creating digital entrepreneurs with the right digital skills around the PM WANI scheme in rural India. This is a unique initiative connecting more people to local businesses and supporting our PM's vision of Hogi Unnati, Badhegi Kamayi.”

Expressing his thoughts, Mr. Vishal Singh, Chief Operating Officer, B-ABLE said “PM-WANI initiative will strengthen urban economy by helping build a livelihood ecosystem through extension of affordable information technology which reaches to every town and village.”

The set-up cost, digital literacy, and initial handholding are some key aspects that play a huge role in the adoption of the PM-WANI scheme at scale. Being one of the leading companies in the WiFi domain, i2e1 has created a smart plug-&-play PDO solution costing 1/4th of the traditional solutions in the market.  and has been instrumental in shaping and demonstrating the potential of the WANI model with TRAI and other industry partners.

i2e1 believes that this model can be adopted by government bodies such as MSME or NSDC as well as private organizations like B-ABLE who are focused on livelihoods. It also presents a new way of investing and impacting communities for the CSR companies interested in the areas such as digital connectivity and livelihood promotion.

About i2e1:

Founded in 2015, i2e1 was incubated in IIT Delhi by Satyam Darmora. Over the years industry veterans like Natraj Akella, Nishit Aggarwal, Maanas Dwivedi and Ashutosh Mishra have joined the team. The company's core offerings are Magic Box – a WANI ready cloud-based Wi-Fi management platform, Wi-Fi based retail analytics, and marketing solutions for offline merchants. In Nov 2017, the company raised 2nd round (Series A) funding of $3 million by Omidyar Network, Auxano Ventures and 3one4 capital.

About B-ABLE:

B-ABLE, a part of BASIX is a pioneer organization in the field of skill development and vocational training with distinction of being the first training partner of National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC). B-ABLE works with a vision of ‘Skilling People, Enhancing Livelihoods, Transforming Lives’. It provides market-driven, aspiration-based vocational education and training using technology and partnerships. B-ABLE is working towards increasing the capability of the under-educated and the under-skilled to transform them into self-employed, help them in finding meaningful work and continually upgrade their competencies by offering them technical, commercial and life skills.