AIC-IIITH Foundation

Choosing the right programme

• If you are a GreenTech startup with some revenue, the Akash EPAM Social Impact Innovation Program is the specific fit — it is the only programme with a published sector list and a published revenue bar.
• If you are a tech-based social enterprise outside GreenTech, the Akash Acceleration Program is the general route, and the current edition says it is tailored to research-focused teams.
• The AIC Incubation Program is described on the home page as the flagship, but the site gives it no page, dates or form. Do not wait for it to open — apply to whichever Akash cohort is live.
• Nothing here is for a non-technology venture. Every programme wants technology doing the work of the social impact, not a service business with a social mission attached.

How applications work

• Applications run on F6S, not on AIC-IIITH's own site. Each programme card on the Programs page links to its own listing.
• Each card also has a separate eligibility and terms link. Read it before you apply — the acceleration programme's eligibility is not printed on the page at all.
• The Programs page carries no deadlines for either live programme, and one of the eligibility links is broken. If the listing looks stale, email the centre before writing a full application.
• Applications in an earlier edition asked for the startup's lifetime revenue to date, so have that number ready and consistent with whatever you file elsewhere.

What reviewers look for

• A clear line from your technology to a social outcome. The centre frames everything around the UN Sustainable Development Goals, so name the problem and who it affects, not just the product.
• Evidence you are tech-first. ESIIP says so outright, and the acceleration programme's current edition is pitched at research-focused teams.
• Potential for research collaboration with IIIT Hyderabad. This is the centre's distinguishing offer, so a specific ask — a lab, a dataset, a faculty area, the Smart City test bed — is worth more than a general request for mentoring.
• Traction you can show. Both the GreenTech programme and the earlier Covid-era cohort set a revenue bar, which suggests the centre prefers ventures already in the market to pure ideas.

Before you commit

• AIC-IIITH is supported by the Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog. Neither the centre nor AIM publishes a funding period for it, so ask the team directly what support is running now and until when.
• Check whether the cohort you are applying to is genuinely open. The Programs page has not changed since early 2026, the news and upcoming-events pages are empty, and its acceleration card is headed as one edition while its application link points at the next one.

AIC-IIITH Foundation is an Atal Incubation Centre built for one kind of founder: people using technology to solve a social problem. It is a Section 8 company, set up by IIIT-Hyderabad with Surge Impact Foundation as the vehicle for the centre, and it is supported by the Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog. It sits inside the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) on the IIIT Hyderabad campus at Gachibowli, Hyderabad, alongside the institute's other incubation centres, research labs and product labs.

Its stated vision is to catalyse the UN Sustainable Development Goals using technology, and everything it runs is pointed at that. Its own about page sets three aims: helping founders validate prototypes and business models against the SDGs, helping them design a venture that is investable and can scale, and becoming one of the tech-for-social-impact incubators India counts.

How programmes work

AIC-IIITH describes the AIC Incubation Program as its flagship. Selected startups get the hard and soft skills they need plus mentor support, and at the end founders get to pitch for seed funding. The centre publishes no separate page, intake dates or application route for this programme, so treat it as the umbrella the named cohorts sit under rather than something you apply to directly.

The two programmes it actually runs intakes for are both called Akash. The Akash Acceleration Program is for tech-based social enterprises, and the current edition is aimed at research-focused teams. It combines seed investment with mentoring, networking and linkages, access to IIIT Hyderabad's labs and its Smart City test bed, and investment support covering pitch refinement and investor introductions. The Akash EPAM Social Impact Innovation Program, shortened to ESIIP, is run with EPAM Systems India and is narrower: GreenTech only, with an equity-free grant, business coaching, a research connection into IIIT Hyderabad, pitch refinement and the same Smart City test-bed access.

Alongside these sits research-led incubation. Because the institute leans on applied research, AIC-IIITH says it will support social impact startups through research engagement — teams exploring any technology for social impact, teams working on mechanical, chemical or biological technology, and teams working on IT and emerging technology. There is no separate application for it; it reads as a mode of support attached to the programmes above.

The centre has also run several programmes that are now archived. Raftaar was a four-month acceleration programme with EPAM for revenue-stage social enterprises disrupted by Covid-19, built around milestone-based bridge grants, bootcamps, masterclasses and access to CIE's startup services. Dhanush is a micro-incubation programme for social enterprises that gives ongoing support, ecosystem connects and need-based access to the centre's resources; the page says three enterprises are supported under it. AIC-IIITH was also the implementation partner for the Pernod Ricard India Foundation's Social Impact Incubator Program and onboarded six organisations for it.

Who can apply

AIC-IIITH is open to outside founders — nothing on its site restricts its programmes to IIIT Hyderabad students or staff. What it does restrict is the kind of venture. Every programme wants a technology-based social enterprise, and the published eligibility gets specific per cohort. ESIIP asks for GreenTech startups with a minimum lifetime revenue and a tech-first team with the potential for research collaboration, and lists the sub-areas it means: circular economy and resource solutions, green energy, green data, climate adaptation, smart cities, sustainable agriculture and food tech, green building and construction, sustainable mobility and sustainable living. Raftaar, when it ran, was for enterprises already in the market with revenue. The centre states no incorporation requirement and no state-domicile restriction.

The acceleration programme's own page does not print its eligibility; it links out to a separate terms document instead, so read that before applying.

Facilities

The centre offers over 10,000 sq ft of space inside CIE. That covers co-working desks and office space for startups with meeting rooms, internet and lounges, a conference room and meeting space, and a 150-seater events room used as a mini-auditorium for events, seminars and workshops. A 50-seater teleconference room is listed as coming soon, with no date. Two things founders often want here belong to the institute rather than to AIC-IIITH and come as programme benefits: the IIITH Smart City Lab test bed, used to validate solutions in a real-world setting, and IIIT-H's wider lab facilities, technical expertise and talent pool.

Scale

AIC-IIITH publishes no headline totals — no count of startups incubated, no capital raised by its portfolio, no jobs figure. What it does publish is a Startups page naming around thirty companies, among them Phool, Help Us Green, Ayata Intelligence, Truspectra, Ecowrap, Sukhibhava, Next Skills 360 and The Rainwater Project, with short descriptions for many of them. The mix is a fair guide to what the centre backs: ambulance booking, medical-device data, UVC disinfection, water-quality sensing for fishing households, rainwater harvesting, hydrogen for boats, low-cost computing kits for government schools and export information for farmers.

Who runs it

Ravi Sarkunan is CEO; his profile describes more than 22 years across social enterprise acceleration, industry, consulting and business research, and an earlier stint running operations at Surge Impact Foundation. Two directors come from IIIT Hyderabad: Ramesh Loganathan, Professor of Co-Innovation, who also heads the institute's research and innovation outreach and CIE; and Dr. Vasudeva Varma, Professor and Head of the Information Retrieval and Extraction Lab, who is also CEO of IIIT Hyderabad Foundation. The working team named on the site is small — an incubation programme analyst, a community manager and a knowledge manager.

How to apply and where to find them

There is no general application form. Each programme on the Programs page carries its own Apply button pointing at that programme's listing on F6S, plus a separate eligibility and terms link. General queries go through the contact form on the contact page. The centre is at CIE, Vindhya C4, IIIT Hyderabad Campus, Gachibowli, Hyderabad 500032. Its events page carries no upcoming listings at the moment, and it has no careers page.