About Us

Mission
Economic empowerment of unemployed youth and disadvantaged members of society, especially women at the grassroots through Entrepreneurship Training, Mentoring, Access to Capital and Handholding. E E E – Economic Empowerment through Entrepreneurship”"
Genesis
Like many path-breaking ideas, the origin of I Create was in the unfortunate incident of riots, police firing on and death of a few unemployed youth trying to enlist for the army during Kargil war. Harsh and Aruna Bhargava, founders of I Create, Inc. in the USA were visiting India at that time.

Like many path-breaking ideas, the origin of I Create was in the unfortunate incident of riots, police firing on and death of a few unemployed youth trying to enlist for the army during Kargil war. Harsh and Aruna Bhargava, founders of I Create, Inc. in the USA were visiting India at that time.
The Kargil war was going on. The army had advertised for 120 positions. There were so many unemployed youth that over one hundred thousand young men showed up for the jobs. A riot broke out, the police opened fire and three young men died – three young men who had come looking for jobs to support their families! It is this incident that gave birth to the idea of I Create to both of them. Though Harsh and his wife Aruna had lived outside of India for over 30 years, India was not out of their mind and heart. So, I Create, a non-profit organization that would help create jobs and job creators or entrepreneurs through entrepreneurship training in India was born.
Coincidentally, as part of Harvard Business School Alumni outreach program, Harsh had volunteered to help NFTE (Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship) with inner city kids in New York. There he met and heard the Founder and President of NFTE, USA, Steve Mariotti, speak. He was so impressed with Steve and his sincere efforts to help disadvantaged youth and NFTE’s practical curriculum for teaching entrepreneurship that he felt certain, that the NFTE training would help the disadvantaged Indian youth immensely not only to become entrepreneurs, but also, to acquire employability skills. Rather than reinvent the wheel, Harsh and Aruna decided to take the NFTE program to India. Steve readily agreed. Once in India, they adapted the NFTE program for India. What started as a compassionate act to help the unemployed has turned in to a movement for entrepreneurship development for the underprivileged and disadvantaged of our society.
heart.


Target Groups: Army Veterans, Women and Youth
Our interventions and programs are designed and directed towards our chosen target groups consisting primarily of Army Veterans, Women, and Youth.

Veterans retire from the army, at a relatively young age of 30+. They are skilled, motivated and ready for their second innings. When you empower a woman, you empower the entire family and for the nation to benefit from the demographic dividend , we need to empower the youth.
Approximately 60,000 veterans retire from the Indian Army each year. Majority of them are of NCO and JCO ranks. They represent a skilled talent pool of young people with traits like discipline, commitment to a cause, risk taking ability, hard work, perseverance etc., - all essential for a successful entrepreneurship venture. Providing guidance and assistance to this pool of veterans in their entrepreneurship journey is in the interest of nation building.
Close to 6 million youth join the job market each year, but there is only a fraction of proper jobs being created. India cannot hope to become a great state if it cannot fulfil the dreams of decent jobs for the young who have aspirations and dreams in the new India. Converting some of them into job creators is one way to address the issue.
We have also focused on women at the grassroots level for two reasons. In Indian society, especially at the grassroots level, they are the least empowered and suffer the most. Secondly, when you empower a women, you empower their entire future generations.
Current Status
Since the beginning of the century, as the work of I Create became known across the country, likeminded people joined the cause and supported centers in different parts of the country. It started with one center in Jaipur at the turn of the century, but are currently present in Bangalore, Pune, Ahmednagar, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Vadodara.

Since the beginning of the century, as the work of I Create became known across the country, likeminded people joined the cause and supported centers in different parts of the country. It started with one center in Jaipur at the turn of the century but are currently present in Bangalore, Pune, Ahmednagar, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Vadodara.
I Create India has its National Academy at Bengaluru. It's most important role is to continuously update the program, develop new tools and ensure quality. It also coordinates the activities of different centers and partners and provides them with technical support in Entrepreneurship Development.
I Create works with many strategic partners across the country and numerous NGOs help in implementation of our programs.
. As Gandhiji said. "If you have a good cause, people pop up from the pavement to join you."


MAGIC fund for Micro Enterprises
Access to finance is still one of the hardest challenges for small and micro businesses, who have no collateral to offer and need to finance their enterprises without bureaucratic delays and hassles. I Create has established Seed Capital Assistance Funds for such businesses., to overcome the bureaucratic delays of government schemes or high cost of MFIs. Funds are operational at Bangalore and Jaipur.

Access to finance is still one of the hardest challenges for small and micro businesses, who have no collateral to offer and need to finance their enterprises without bureaucratic delays and hassles. I Create has established Seed Capital Assistance Funds for such businesses., to overcome the bureaucratic delays of government schemes or high cost of MFIs. Funds are operational at Bangalore and Jaipur.
MAGIC (Mentor and Angel Group of I Create) at Bangalore is funded by donations from many individual supporters and corporates, to provide returnable assistance to deserving enterprises. The process is easy, quick and hassle free. Entrepreneurs trained by I Create are provided the assistance, if they have a viable business idea and a plan. Revolving nature of the fund helps us support large number of aspirants. The Fund started operations by end of 2014. Similar Fund, known as Amrit Fund (in memory of late Amrit Kapoor) is operational at Jaipur.
MAGIC and Amrit Funds are not MFI schemes.
Scaling Through Institutional Partnerships
To reach the scale needed to address the magnitude of issue faced by the country, I Create has chosen the path of partnership with institutions and organizations of State and National level. It plans to institutionalize the Entrepreneurship Development Process through such large organizations to create the impact needed in the country through Creating Job Creators.

To reach the scale needed to address the magnitude of issue faced by the country, I Create has chosen the path of partnership with institutions and organizations of State and National level. It plans to institutionalize the Entrepreneurship Development Process through such large organizations to create the impact needed in the country through Creating Job Creators.
I Create India has now many active partnerships and executed MoUs with different National and State level government and private organizations. This is an ongoing process and more are welcome to join in this.
