Prove it
Talk to thirty people who have the problem. Come back with one who’ll pay.
The gateA letter of intent, a pilot agreement or a budget line.
The Aegis AI Founders School You’ve watched the same problem for years. Nobody is coming to fix it. Maybe that’s your company.
Read the story
30 founders · Six months · Mumbai · Begins 6 March 2027
The one who knows
Every field has someone like this.
- The doctor who spends every evening arguing with insurance forms.
- The plant manager who can tell you which machine will fail next.
- The officer with a room full of files and one clerk to read them.
- The accountant who has done the same reconciliation for eleven years.
- The engineer who is tired of building someone else’s dream.
You know exactly where it breaks. You know who would pay to fix it. Nobody in Silicon Valley knows that. You do.
What changed
It used to take twenty engineers and a year.
Now three people can do it in weeks.
Building gets cheaper every month. Knowing what’s worth building doesn’t. That’s the part you’ve spent your whole career on.
Meanwhile
In San Francisco, Y Combinator is asking founders to build AI for America’s city halls and benefit offices.
Who’s building it for India?
“That’s the challenge and opportunity before every Indian: to create solutions for India’s problems and contribute to building a developed nation by 2047.”
Shri Jayant Chaudhary, Union Minister of State, to founders at the AGB Innovation Pitch
Six places we’d start. Yours is probably better.
An expert at every front desk
AI that lets a trained clerk do work that now waits for a specialist: assessing a claim, coding a medical bill, preparing a tax filing.
A back office for the small manufacturer
GST returns, invoice matching, e-way bills and compliance, for firms with no finance team.
Hospital claims without the chasing
Pre-approvals and claim papers moving between hospitals, administrators and insurers, with a person signing off.
Prove it once for every scheme
A citizen proves income, address and family details once, in their own language. The product does the rest, across departments.
Advice for farmers over an ordinary phone
Crop, credit and insurance guidance by voice, in local languages, for people who will never install an app.
AI that runs where the cloud can’t
Small models on local hardware for schools, courts and factories where connectivity, cost or data rules keep the cloud out.
Source: Y Combinator, Requests for Startups, Winter 2027.
We’ve done this ourselves
Three problems that wouldn’t leave us alone.
The road
Six months. Three gates. Nobody gets through on attendance.
Build it
Your team builds it, with AI agents. Real users, real data, real numbers.
The gateA live pilot, built by you, with accuracy and cost measured.
Stand it up
Your price, your first paying customers, a real company, your first hire.
The gateJury Day. You defend it in front of a panel, with investors invited.
Some of you will stop at the first gate. Good. Better to find out in eight weeks than in two years.
What actually happens each week
The rhythm
- Tuesday evening, online. A working session on that week’s question, sometimes with a founder telling the real story.
- Thursday evening, online. Group office hours. You bring your numbers and get challenged.
- One weekend a month, in Mumbai. Six in all, from 6 and 7 March to Jury Day on 21 August.
- One number, every week. Conversations held, active users or revenue. You can’t hide from it.
Before the first weekend
Finish Y Combinator’s free Startup School. It takes 7 to 14 hours. We won’t spend your time teaching what they give away.
What you’ll have to answer
- Is this problem worth a company?
- Why does AI change it now?
- What stops someone copying you?
- Can you prove the AI is right?
- What does each task cost you?
- Who pays, and for what?
- Are you allowed to use the data?
- How small can the team stay?
The room
They’ll tell you when your numbers don’t add up.
Most people in your life won’t. There are 30 seats, so that these people can actually learn your name.
Bhupesh Daheria
Founded Aegis in 2002. Started the Aegis Graham Bell Awards.
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CEO of Aegis School of Data Science & AI. Launched the mUni Campus platform in 2013. Ask about first customers, selling to enterprises and government, and building something that lasts.
Dr. Ashish Tendulkar
Google AI. Shows engineers how a business problem becomes a working AI system.
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Ask about architecture, testing against real cases, what breaks in production and how to fix it.
Dr. Vinay Kulkarni
Director of Aegis. Adjunct Faculty, IIT Bombay.
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B.Tech and PhD from IIT Bombay. Former Vice President of Innovation and Incubation at Geometric Ltd. Ask about choosing the problem, judging a pilot and getting to production.
Dr. Abhijit Gangopadhyay
Dean of Aegis. Founding Dean, IIM Indore. Former IAS officer.
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Former Dean at TISS, Mumbai. Ask about co-founder fights, first hires, leading a small team, and how government works.
Also in the room: a co-founder you haven’t met yet. Founders who won at our awards, telling the real story off the record. And when you’re ready, an introduction to someone who might buy.
Bhupesh, Dr. Kulkarni and Dr. Gangopadhyay also sit on the awards jury. They step aside when a School venture comes up. Titles identify each mentor; the School is run by Aegis alone.
The stage
Picture it. New Delhi. The hall goes quiet. They read out your company’s name.
17editions since 2010
4,500+innovations judged
350+winning companies
250jurors in the pool
68investors at the first pitch
Nobody can promise you that moment. Not us. An independent jury decides, and it doesn’t care who taught you. So we’ll score you the way they score, from the first week.
How the awards and the pitch work
The four things the jury looks at
- Problem and market. Is it real, how big is it, and what’s your evidence?
- Innovativeness. What’s new, and how far ahead of the alternatives is it?
- Market potential. Size, competition, savings delivered, whether it scales.
- Social impact. Does it make life better, and is it built responsibly?
From the awards nomination process.
Where you can go from here
We get every venture ready to nominate for the Aegis Graham Bell Awards and apply to the AGB Innovation Pitch. You’re judged on the same terms as everyone else, and Aegis holds no stake in you.
Enterprises come looking for AI products at Bharat AI Innovation, organised by Aegis Knowledge Trust.
Figures from bellaward.com, November 2026.
The deal
You don’t quit your job on a dream. You quit on evidence.
100%
of your company stays yours.
Aegis takes no equity, now or later. The fee is ₹3,00,000 plus GST. You pay ₹60,000 to begin, and the rest only after you’ve passed a gate.
All the terms
| Stage | Dates (2027) | Fee + 18% GST | You pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prove it | 6 March to 30 April | ₹60,000 | When you accept your seat |
| Build it | 1 May to 25 June | ₹1,20,000 | After you pass the first gate |
| Stand it up | 26 June to 20 August | ₹1,20,000 | After you pass the second gate |
| Jury Day | 21 August, Mumbai | Included |
- ₹3,54,000 in all per founder, with GST. Every founder gets the same terms. There’s no application fee.
- If you stop, you owe nothing more. The Aegis Cancellation and Refund Policy applies to each payment.
- A co-founder on the same venture pays half.
- If fewer than 15 founders are admitted, it doesn’t run and every fee comes back.
- A company or CSR sponsor can fund a seat for a founder working on a public problem who can’t pay. These seats exist only when a sponsor funds them.
- The fee covers the sessions, office hours, gate reviews, six weekends, Jury Day, introductions to buyers where we have a relationship, and a founders’ group that stays open afterwards.
- You pay for your own AI and cloud bills, travel and stay for the weekends, and the awards nomination fee. We’ll help you apply to the startup credit programmes run by cloud and AI companies.
Before you go on
Most people should close this page.
Close it if
- You want a certificate. There isn’t one.
- You’re waiting for someone to hand you an idea.
- You need a promise of funding. Nobody honest can make one.
- One “no” from a customer would finish you.
Keep going if
- You can say the problem in one sentence.
- It has already cost you sleep.
- You’d rather try and fail than wonder.
- You’re ready to be told you’re wrong.
Not sure? Three questions
What people ask us
Do I need to know how to code?
No. You need to know the problem. But by the end of the second stage someone on your team has to be able to build and run the product, because the core of it can’t be outsourced. Domain experts either learn to build with AI coding agents here, or team up with a builder they meet here.
Do I need an idea, a co-founder or a registered company?
None of them. You need a problem you understand better than most people, and the time to go and talk to the people who have it. Come alone if you like. Teams form in the first weeks.
Can I keep my job?
Yes, through the first two stages. In the third, at least one founder in each venture goes full-time, and that can be your co-founder. Do check your employment contract on outside work and intellectual property before you build anything.
What does it cost?
₹3,00,000 plus 18% GST per founder, paid in three parts: ₹60,000 to begin, ₹1,20,000 after you pass the first gate, and ₹1,20,000 after the second. A co-founder on the same venture pays half. If you stop, you owe nothing more.
Does Aegis take equity?
No. No shares, no warrant, no claim on your company later. We aren’t putting money into your company, so we don’t take a piece of it. And Aegis runs the awards you may enter, so owning part of you would be wrong.
When does it start, and how much of my time does it take?
Applications close on 31 January 2027. The first weekend is 6 and 7 March 2027, and Jury Day is 21 August 2027. There are two live evenings a week online and one weekend a month in Mumbai. The first stage takes 12 to 15 hours a week and the second takes 20 to 25.
Should I apply to Y Combinator, Antler or Entrepreneur First instead?
If you’re ready to go full-time now and one of them will take you, go. They put money in and take equity. Y Combinator invests $500,000, wants you full-time in San Francisco for three months, and needs a parent company in the US, Canada, Singapore or the Cayman Islands. We’re for the stage before that: you know a problem, you may still have a job, and your company stays Indian. We take no equity, so you can apply to any of them afterwards.
Y Combinator’s Startup School is free. Why pay for this?
Take Startup School. It’s very good, and we ask every founder to finish it before the first weekend. It teaches you how startups work. It can’t sit across from you and tell you your numbers don’t add up, put a co-founder in the room, or introduce you to an Indian buyer.
What if my problem turns out not to be a business?
Better to find out in eight weeks than in two years. Change the problem, join another team before the build stage, or stop. You pay nothing for stages you don’t take.
Will you get me funding or an award?
No, and be careful of anyone who says they will. We get you ready to nominate for the awards and apply to the pitch. The jury is independent, and investors decide for themselves. Mentors who sit on the jury step aside when a School venture comes up.
What do I get at the end?
A company, or the truth about your idea. There’s no degree and no certificate.
Your move
Ten years from now, someone will have solved it. Let it be you.
Tell us the problem in two or three lines. No deck, no pitch. We read every one.
- 31 Jan 2027Applications close
- 12 FebWe reply
- 6 MarThe first weekend
- 21 AugJury Day
Rather talk first? admissions@aegis.edu.in or +91 7777 066 810. Or come and find us at Bharat AI Innovation, 20 and 21 November, World Trade Center Mumbai.
Got it.
Someone from Aegis will read this and write back. Can’t wait? Call +91 7777 066 810.