Digital Naukri Challenge
Homemakers as Nation Builders
Prize Purse of
₹6.5 Cr
209.34 million Indian women don’t step out of their homes even once a day.
These women could form the 8th most populous nation in the world.
But this is not a setback,
it’s an opportunity!
If they can’t go to work, why can’t work come to them?
Enter, digital naukri
Small tasks
Discrete by nature
Performed online
Shorter work hours
Foundational skills
Can you unlock new opportunities with time and location-flexible work for women?
Challenge timeline: 20 months
How you can win the challenge
Contestants will compete for an INR 6.5 crore prize, aiming to create flexible, time-and-location-free jobs for 500 women in Phase 1 and scale to 10,000 women in Phase 2.
Phase 1:
Proof of viability
Remote, time-flexible microwork: 1-4 hours a day
Sustainable income of ₹200-500/hr for 10+ days a month
Fast onboarding with platform access and upskilling
Phase 2:
Proof of scalability
Demonstrate outcomes at scale across geographies
Demonstrate retention of at least 70%
Provide evidence of 2+ transferable tech skills
Your chance to access, engage with and win!
Prize purse of INR 6.5 Cr
Investor connects
One-on-one mentorship
Go-to-market support
Immersion & pilot opportunities
Grassroot connections
Media attention
Digital microwork refers to small, discrete tasks that are distributed to a large pool of workers via online platforms. These tasks can be completed quickly and typically require minimal time commitment, technical expertise, or advanced skills.
Scope of the challenge
Unlocking new work opportunities with fractional employment (time and location-flexible work)
Enable 500 women with digital microwork opportunities that are performed remotely, between 1-4 hours per day, and are time flexible.
Provide job tasks that have the potential to provide sustained, elevated earnings of INR 200-500/hr for at least 10 day s in a month.
Provide a rapid onboarding pathway to provide platform access and upskill women with a secondary-level education or below.
Scale these work opportunities for 10,000 and retain at least 70% of the women workers on the platform.
Demonstrate at least 2 transferable technology skills for the women participants
Challenge timeline
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Message from our partners
“While female labour force participation is rising, data shows that women remain concentrated in a few low-productivity sectors, highlighting the need to close solution gaps. At Mphasis, we’re committed to supporting initiatives that drive real change. We’re proud to take this step through The/Nudge Prize, helping to identify and support innovative ideas that create equitable livelihoods for women.”
Deepa Nagraj
Message from our partners & advisors
“While female labour force participation is rising, data shows that women remain concentrated in a few low-productivity sectors, highlighting the need to close solution gaps. At Mphasis, we’re committed to supporting initiatives that drive real change. We’re proud to take this step through The/Nudge Prize, helping to identify and support innovative ideas that create equitable livelihoods for women.”
Deepa Nagraj
“I am proud to support this impactful initiative aimed at empowering underprivileged women by fostering innovative, tech-driven solutions. Addressing key challenges such as digital microwork can unlock new employment pathways and economic mobility for millions. This endeavour is vital to bridging the gap in workforce participation and enhancing livelihoods for women facing social and structural barriers. I am committed to contributing insights and strategic guidance that inspire sustainable progress and create equitable opportunities for all. “
Rituparna Chakraborty
“I am excited to be a part of this important initiative that is attempting to find pathways for marginalised women to become economically productive citizens through digital microwork. This will open new avenues of employment and economic resilience for millions, enabling women to step confidently into emerging roles and industries.”
Gayathri Vasudevan
“The poor do not need poor solutions. Millions of underserved women deserve fair, equitable, and high-quality opportunities that recognise their potential and provide pathways to sustainable livelihoods. Digital micro-work and similar task based work, offers a transformative chance to empower women economically—not as a handout, but as a dignified solution that aligns with their aspirations. At Mann Deshi, we’ve seen how access to the right tools and opportunities can help women thrive. I’m committed to ensuring this ethos drives efforts to create meaningful change.”
Chetna Sinha
“Tough problems are solved through disruptive innovation ecosystems. Over the last two decades, India has leapfrogged its ability to address knowledge work through digital pathways. Yet, a significant gap remains: connecting frontier sectors with millions of homebound women aged 25-40 who are outside the formal workforce. For these digital work pathways to succeed, job creators and enablers must deeply understand the latent potential and diverse skills of these women to shape the next wave of work that brings them income and opportunity. I am eager to engage with and learn from efforts tackling this challenge to uncover transformative solutions.”
Sharad Sharma
Advisors
Sharad Sharma
Chetna Sinha
Gayathri Vasudevan
Rituparna Chakraborty
Ecosystem partners
Hear from our past challengers and winners
“Since the challenge concluded, we have been growing rapidly and it feels like we went from class 5 to class 10 suddenly. But both the CISCO team and The/Nudge have been tremendously helpful.”
Nidhi Pant, Co-founder
“Very grateful to Prize for bringing together our cohort for the India market. We hope this bouquet of solutions becomes the next ‘India Stack’ for water.”
Gokul Krishna, Co-founder and CEO
“If a system works for a smallholder farmer, it can work for everyone. Towards the end of DCM Shriram AgWC, we would like to reach at least 5000 smallholder farmers.”
Shrilesh Mande, Co-founder and CEO
“The AgWater Challenge has changed us. During baseline we conducted interviews with our smallholder farmers regarding their practices and aspirations. It was tough but eye opening.”
Ankit Jain, Co-founder and BDO
“Our audacious goal is to cultivate 50,000 acres of paddy fields across the northern and southern regions of India by the end of this challenge-no matter how ambitious it may seem.”
Mallesh TM, Founder and CEO
Digital microwork refers to small, discrete tasks that are distributed to a large pool of workers via online platforms. These tasks can be completed quickly and typically require minimal time commitment, technical expertise, or advanced skills.
Frequently asked questions
The Digital Naukri Challenge is open to a variety of organisations – for-profit, non-profit, hybrid, and social enterprises that are enabling work opportunities for women across any part of India. These organisations may be operating across the following work types:
- Existing Microwork Organisations: These platforms provide microtasking services such as data labelling, transcription, and content moderation.
- IT / BPO / Outsourcing Organisations: These companies offer tech-driven services like customer support, data processing, and IT services for global/domestic clients, specialising in back-office operations and technical support.
- Job Access Platforms: These online platforms match job seekers with employers, offering freelance, gig jobs, and upskilling to connect talent with job opportunities.
- Digital/Tech Skilling: These organisations provide training tailored to women, enhancing job readiness by addressing workforce barriers.
- AI and data organisations: These organisations work in cutting-edge technologies across AI and data, and may plan to fractionalise tasks on model training and data.
The last date to complete the first application is December 29th 2024
The total prize purse is INR 6.5 Crore. At specific points in the challenge, there will be seed grants and milestone grants disbursed to the challengers, the particulars of which will be shared with the shortlisted organisations.
The application form does not have an option to save a partially filled form or resume the application later. Once the tab is closed/refreshed, you may lose your filled in data. Please keep the data and any attachments handy before starting to fill out the application to reduce the risk of data loss.
You will receive an intimation from The/Nudge Prize team via email for the next steps, if your application is selected for evaluation.
The application will go through multiple rounds of evaluation. All applications will first be screened by The/Nudge Prize team, and then evaluated by a panel of experts. They will review the applications on multiple parameters based on the selection criteria, and then the shortlisted organisations will be sent a second application form to fill out, which would contain a pitch deck. The shortlisted organisations will present their pitch to an eminent jury panel of experts. The selected 8-10 organisations will make up the challenger cohort for the Digital Naukri Challenge.
The cohort will be announced by February 2025. Updates will be shared on our website and social media handles.
Please reach out to – prize@thenudge.org for application-related queries.
The/Nudge Prize – Digital Naukri Challenge brings together an ecosystem to provide expert guidance to the cohort throughout the challenge – knowledge partners, implementation partners, investors, and thought leaders.
Challengers have the chance to access one-on-one conversations with mentors at regular intervals, knowledge sharing sessions, masterclasses, workshops, and opportunities to interact with potential investors across pitching events. Ecosystem members will also host knowledge sessions and workshops for challengers throughout the duration of the challenge.
We have a mentor-in-residence model where we onboard experts connected to the female labour force participation ecosystem to provide mentorship to the challenger cohort. In the past, our Mentor-in- Residence model enabled online office hours for each contestant on various aspects such as business models, technical expertise, etc. throughout the course of the challenge. The Mentor-In-Residence model in the past had the mentors:
Providing 1:1 mentorship/guidance with a minimum of 3-4 hours per month across the cohort of organisations during the course of the challenge
Providing connects to relevant stakeholder such as government, academic institutions and potential opportunities such as investment, pilot if possible
Serving as speakers/panellists at events and seminars during the course of the challenge, as required for coverage of topics based on expertise:
Some of the mentors from the previous challenge, DCM Shriram AgWater Challenge, were:
Asitava Sen- an Independent Strategic Advisor to Agribusiness (Ex-CEO – Croplife India). As a mentor, he provided advice on growth and business strategy, stakeholders connect, policy and regulatory matters, etc.
Nicholas Brozovic- Director, Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute. To the participants, he provided advice on water policy and management, entrepreneurship/ technology.
P SuryaKumar- Former Deputy Managing Director NABARD. He provided advice on sustainable agriculture, smallholder farmers perspectives to finance and policy.
Renuka Diwan- Co-founder Bioprime Agri Solutions. She provided advice on agriculture, entrepreneurship, Prize journey, and go-to-market strategy.
For the Digital Naukri Challenge, we will have a similar Mentor-In-Residence model hosting mentors who have extensive experience in the space.
You will have an opportunity to connect with implementation partners such as i-Saksham and Lighthouse Communities to reach and establish meaningful connections to solve for these women.
Let’s create work models that work for women!
