WE HUB, India’s first state led incubator to foster and promote women entrepreneurship to start-up, scale-up and accelerate with global market access, today announced its partnership with the University of Basel - Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest surviving universities.

The MoU was inked between Mr. Christian Elias Schneider, Head Innovation and Entrepreneurship of University of Basel with Ms. Deepthi Ravula, CEO, WE HUB, A Government of Telangana initiative.

The partnership will initiate a start-up exchange and start-up immersion programs mainly focussing on women led start-ups in the healthcare, pharma, life sciences and technology. These programs will enable women entrepreneurs to gain a deeper understanding of the functioning of respective ecosystems and the industry landscape, hence helping them scale- up and sustain through global market-access.

Ms. Deepthi Ravula, CEO OF WE HUB said “At WE HUB, our focus is to be a platform to enable ecosystems to collaborate. As part of this effort, we are excited to collaborate with the University of Basel, which is the centre of one of the world’s most active locations for life sciences, pharma and healthcare.  With Telangana and Basel having many similarities and parallels in focus sectors and with the number of Women Researchers, Women Led start-ups in these sectors, it is an exciting and fruitful collaboration. Our partnership will focus on start-up exchanges to enable Women Led start-ups from both Basel and Telangana to start up, scale up and accelerate with Global market access. We are also cofounders of one of its kind initiatives called, FEMtrepreneurs to get more young women led start-ups to get the access to mentoring, technology support and the much needed platform to grow and sustain.”

Mr. Christian Schneider, Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Basel Innovation Office, said, “The University of Basel Innovation is excited to partner with WE HUB for a sustainable and dynamic exchange of start-ups, mentors, especially female entrepreneurs and the whole ecosystem in Hyderabad and Basel.”

Mr Sebastien Hug, Consul General of Switzerland and CEO of swissnex India said “swissnex India connected WE HUB with the University of Basel in April 2019 to explore a collaboration on promoting women in leadership roles and women entrepreneurship, as well as on innovation ecosystem engagement. As the facilitators of this partnership, I'm glad that this sustainable and long term linkage between Telangana - Switzerland has materialised in this short a time.”

Benefits that start-ups will receive:

• Start-up exchange and start-up immersion programs: This will provide the start-ups mentorship, industry specific trainings, workshops, know-how of technical and business expertise.
• Technology Transfer & Cross Learning: This will enable entrepreneurs working in similar fields, to cross collaborate and cross learn across industry borders.
• FEMtrepreneurs:  A unique initiative by the University of Basel and WE HUB to get more young women researchers and women-led start-ups to get the access to mentoring, technology support and the much needed platform to grow and sustain. FEMtrepreneurs and WE Hub will work together with the best practice models for enabling more women-led start-ups to work in the areas of life sciences, health, and pharmaceuticals.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Mr K T Rama Rao, Minister for IT E&C, Dr. Andreas Baum, Ambassador of Switzerland to India, Mr. Jayesh Ranjan, IAS Principal Secretary to the Government of Telangana, Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman & MD, Biocon India, Mr, Sebastian Hug, Consul General of Switzerland to South India.

About WE Hub:

WE Hub is the first-of-its-kind and only State-run platform for Women Entrepreneurs by Government of Telangana. WE Hub supports women entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, solutions, and entities focusing on emerging areas in technology and allied sectors WE Hub also supports under-explored / unexplored sectors such as FMCG, retail, e-commerce including the Service sector. The mandate and goal of WE Hub is to eliminate financial, societal and support barriers for women and help them succeed in their enterprises. WE Hub is envisioned to create a supportive community for aspiring and existing women entrepreneurs where they can interact with VCs for funding, connect with corporates for scaling up their business, get advice from mentors to fine-tune ideas, technical mentoring, and march forward on the path to success with renewed confidence.