What started in 2007 as a local initiative following Silicon Valley to help budding entrepreneurs succeed, has now come a full circle. A completely home-grown program. TiE Pune Nurture mentoring program for entrepreneurs is now being offered across the globe to all the 62 TiE chapters worldwide. Nurture is the largest Pro Bono Accelerator in India right now.

Says Kiran Deshpande, Board Member, TiE Global, “10 years ago a few of our TiE Pune Charter Members decided to create a mentorship program that would help start-ups. Unlike what you learn in business schools, what we did was to use our real-life experience to help entrepreneurs. Nowhere can you get to learn the ropes of the game from experienced entrepreneurs as in Nurture does. And that is what differentiates our program from the rest. Over 250 entrepreneurs have gone through TiE Nurture in past 10 years. Starting with mere 4 startups in 2012, TiE Pune Nurture-10 had over 60 entrepreneurs from Pune, Hubli, Nagpur, Surat, and Madhya Pradesh. Contributing to the global initiative, organized mentoring is being extended globally to all TiE chapters. TiE Pune Nurture will play a significant role in this initiative that will assimilate programs from other chapters such as TiE Scale-It from Boston, TiE Dubai mentoring, TiE Atlanta COBA and TiE Institute created by TiE Seattle.

While the Nurture is becoming a global program, TiE Pune has helped put two local businesswomen on the global map. Dr. Parul Ganju (Ahammune Biosciences Pvt. Ltd) and Dr. Anuya Nisal (Serigen Mediproducts) participated and won in the TiE Women’s Global Pitch Competition. Both were finalists at the global level with Dr. Parul Ganju winning the runner-up prize of $25,000 and Dr. Anuya Nisal declared as the winner of the India competition and among the global finalists. Both accessed the business networks across all the 62 TiE chapters enhancing their Pune-based companies to a global level.

Says Zelam Chaubal who heads the TiE Women’s initiative, “we at TiE believe women entrepreneurs need to be supported to the fullest to realize their true potential. Besides the many things we do for them, we also run a special women’s only global competition which has reaped rich dividends for two of our Pune women entrepreneurs, Dr. Parul Ganju and Dr. Anuya Nisal. TiE Pune is firmly committed to doing all we can to help our women.”