PROSOC Innovators is a for-profit social enterprise that designs and develops products and services that can empower people, at the base of the pyramid, in sectors like education, livelihood, agriculture, and healthcare. PROSOC stands for ‘PROducts for SOCiety’.
Incubated at IIM Bangalore’s entrepreneurial learning centre, NSRCEL, PROSOC is currently working on two products in the domains of education and livelihood.
For school children, PROSOC has designed and developed DESKIT, which is a combination of a lightweight school bag and an ergonomic, foldable, portable and detachable table. Children can carry DESKITs to schools and also use them at homes to read and write comfortably, maintaining good body posture. Over the last three years, more than 1,50,000 school children have used DESKITs across 16 states in India. A successful pilot project has been implemented in refugee camps in Iraq. The start-up is exploring markets in South-East Asia, Africa and Lain America. Plans are afoot to expand the DESKIT business, through the retail mode by collaborating with established brands.
Eshan Sadasivan, CEO at PROSOC Innovators, says: “DESKIT has a supply-side impact as well, where women in Kanpur and Hardoi are being trained to stitch DESKIT school bags. We hope to create a steady source of income for them.”
In the livelihood domain, PROSOC is working on bringing out a compact, low-cost Paper Carry-Bag Making Machine (PBMM). This, they say, will create employment opportunities for the needy. The pilot project will be launched this month with CSR support from ONGC.
PROSOC is also an incubatee company of the Start-up Incubation and Innovation Centre at IIT Kanpur and the INVENT Social Incubation Program supported by the Technology Development Board, Government of India, Villgro and UK AID.
