Arise for You: A national push to empower student entrepreneurs

A new alliance with real-world scale aims to turn classroom ideas into viable businesses. HCLTech, Pearson, and the MeitY Startup Hub have joined forces to launch Arise for You, a pan-India challenge designed to identify, educate, and propel student entrepreneurs. The program, whose name encodes Aspire, Rise, Inspire, Skill, Excel, is built to reach a broad swath of India’s youth—reportedly more than 150,000 students across 3,000 campuses. Winners can access grants of up to ₹10 lakh and a pathway to incubation, turning prototypes into market-ready ventures. In short: it’s a bet on young talent as the engine of India’s future tech economy.

The puzzle pieces — who’s doing what

• HCLTech provides the platform and industry leadership. The company’s EdTech division will help run the program’s day-to-day, with a focus on digital, engineering, cloud, and AI capabilities. Srimathi Shivashankar, Corporate Vice President and Business Head for EdTech Services at HCLTech, describes Arise for You as a catalyst and a launchpad for students who have ideas but lack a platform to scale them.
• Pearson contributes its globally recognized Entrepreneurship and Small Business (ESB) certification, a centerpiece of the curriculum. The ESB credential covers essential business planning, financial management, marketing, and opportunity recognition, giving students a solid foundation before they even draft a business plan.
• MeitY Startup Hub (MSH) acts as the government’s connective tissue. Beyond advisory support, MSH links participants to a network of mentorship and resources—more than 60 hubs—designed to help navigate the startup landscape and access the ecosystem that nurtures early-stage ventures.

The collaboration underscores a broader policy and economic objective: build a sustainable innovation pipeline that keeps pace with a rapidly evolving AI and deep-tech landscape. The program sits alongside other national initiatives like the IndiaAI Mission and the AI for Entrepreneurship module, reinforcing a government emphasis on skilling youth for high-tech entrepreneurship.

How the journey unfolds

Arise for You follows a staged path from ideation to national showcase:

1. Registration and learning: Students sign up online and complete the Pearson ESB program to gain core business knowledge.
2. Idea submission: With a credential in hand, they submit startup concepts for evaluation.
3. Regional qualifiers: The strongest ideas advance through a series of regional events, culminating in regional pitch sessions that mirror a Shark Tank-style format.
4. National finale: The grand finale is scheduled for March 12–13, 2026, when the top 30 student teams pitch in front of a panel of industry leaders and potential investors.
5. Beyond the prize: Winners receive grants and incubation support, plus national media coverage and a spot in India’s first Problem Solver Directory, a resource designed to connect budding entrepreneurs with investors and incubators.

This structure is intended not just to reward good ideas but to create a durable pipeline of talent that can turn early-stage inspiration into scalable, tech-enabled ventures.

Why AI and tech sit at the core

While the program is open to students from all disciplines, the emphasis on technology and AI is clear. HCLTech brings a technology-first lens to mentorship, providing practical guidance on product development, data strategies, and AI ethics—competencies that are crucial for building viable AI startups. MeitY Startup Hub’s ongoing focus on emerging technologies, including AI, positions Arise for You as an early-stage funnel for identifying and nurturing the next generation of AI-driven solutions. In line with national policy, this initiative could feed into EiR (Entrepreneurs-in-Residence) programs and other incubator networks that help translate ideas into market-ready ventures.

The program’s alignment with public policy isn’t accidental. It mirrors the government’s broader effort to skill a generation in cutting-edge technologies and foster a vibrant startup ecosystem, with the potential to boost both the quantity and quality of AI-enabled ventures in the coming years.

Expanding access and regional impact

A noteworthy aspect of Arise for You is its stated inclusivity. Organizers explicitly aim to spotlight ideas from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, aligning with the Viksit Bharat Mission’s goal of building a developed India by 2047. By pairing broad access with a robust support network, the program seeks to reduce regional disparities in startup opportunities and create a more representative pipeline of founders who can compete on a national stage.

What this could mean for India’s AI startup scene

• A formal, scalable route from student ideas to funded ventures, with certification that signals readiness to investors.
• A structured mentorship and incubation path, anchored by a major tech company and a national government hub.
• Increased visibility for early-stage teams through national media exposure and a centralized “Problem Solver Directory.”
• A potential feed for MeitY’s EiR programs and other public-private mechanisms designed to accelerate AI and deep-tech startups.

Taken together, Arise for You isn’t just a competition. It’s a strategic investment in India’s intellectual capital, designed to diversify and strengthen the country’s AI startup pipeline while broadening participation across geography and disciplines. The rollout also reflects a pragmatic approach: equip students with business literacy, connect them to a tech-focused support network, and give them a platform to test, iterate, and scale ideas in a real-world context.

The road ahead

As the program enters its next phase, stakeholders will be watching not only who wins but how the ecosystem uses the raw material of student ideas. If Arise for You can translate the energy of campus ideation into funded startups and real-world AI products, it will have achieved something more than a successful competition: a durable mechanism to grow India’s AI entrepreneurship capacity over the next decade.

Note: This article is based on the announced program details and partner roles as described by HCLTech, Pearson, and the MeitY Startup Hub in public disclosures and press materials.