The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced the launch for Aatmanirbhar Bharat Innovation Challenge intended to promote the existing Indian apps and support the development of new apps. The Aatmanirbhar Bharat Innovation campaign is hosted by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology along with the Atal Innovation Mission, an Indian government initiative to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the country. The launch of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Innovation challenge is on the heels of the Indian government banning 59 apps including TikTok, UC Browser and WeChat. The government said that the apps were “stealing” and transmitting data of the users “in an unauthorized manner to servers” located outside India.
Indian Government Launches Aatmanirbhar Bharat Innovation Challenge
Modi in a tweet on Saturday said that there is immense enthusiasm within the start-up and the tech community in the country to develop “Made in India” apps.
“This challenge is for you if you have such a working product or if you feel you have the vision and expertise to create such products,” Modi said. “I urge all my friends in the tech community to participate.”
In a separate post on LinkedIn, Modi said that “India has a very vibrant tech and start-up ecosystem” and that youngsters of India have “excelled in providing tech solutions across sectors.”
Further, Modi said that the campaign would run on two simultaneous tracks with the first track designed to identify and promote existing Indian apps. It was said that the promotion of existing apps would focus on the apps engaged in the categories of e-learning, Work-from-Home solutions, gaming, business, entertainment, office utilities and social networking. Modi in his post on LinkedIn said that the first track will be completed in around a month’s time.
Aatmanirbhar Bharat Innovation Challenge to Support Developers
Meanwhile, the second track is intended to encourage developers to create new apps. Modi said that the government will provide “support in ideation, incubation, prototyping and roll out along with market access.”
“The outcome of this challenge will be to give better visibility and clarity to existing Apps to achieve their goals, and to create tech products to find solutions to tech conundrums with the help of mentorship, tech support and guidance during the entire life-cycle,” Modi said.
According to the dedicated website for the challenge, the government has highlighted that the apps would be evaluated based on ease of use, robustness, security features and scalability. The last date for submission of entries is listed as July 18, 2020.
