ABOUT THE CHALLENGE

The Innovate for Digital India Challenge is an initiative by the Government of India in association with its technology partner Intel®. This program aims at fostering innovation that would benefit the nation’s technological endeavours as well as economy. From inspiration to innovation, the innovators will be provided technological assistance by Intel and expert guidance by IIM Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship cell to develop solutions that could be implemented in the Indian market.

CHALLENGE THEMES

The Challenge aims to encourage the creation of intuitive, easy to use products and solutions that enable and drive access to services imperative for development. Some of these critical services include Financial services, E-governance, Education and Healthcare. Intel invites participation from innovators who can develop products and solutions around two broad areas:

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  Innovation to create citizen's device platform with features that are relevant and drive mass adoption of technology such as, biometric sensing capabilities, peripherals using other sensors, intuitive user interface, gesture recognition, multi-lingual & voice support.

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  Innovation to create apps that accelerate delivery of e-governance services through eKranti/MyGov apps on mobile platform.

 

KEY MILESTONES AND HIGHLIGHTS

The Challenge is designed to transform an inspiration to a commercially viable solution. The participants have to sustain through 5 stages that include incubation and acceleration by the CIIE to build products based on Intel technology for the citizens.

• STAGE I
• Application Submission

• The entry submission phase will end on 28th June, 2015 on or before 6pm IST.

  Up to top 50 participating teams to present their concept to a panel of experts at Ahmedabad.

  Up to 20 participating teams to be selected for accelerator program.

• STAGE II
• Accelerator Program From August to October, 2015

• This phase begins with mentorship of up to 20 shortlisted participating teams. The teams will be mentored at Pune for a period of up to 12 weeks during which they will develop MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) on Intel® Architecture (iA).

  Shortlisted participating teams will have access to a prototyping grant of up to INR 2,00,000 per team.

  Up to top 10 participating teams will be identified at the end of 8 weeks and will receive additional mentorship.

• STAGE III
• Go to Market Preparation and Prototype Day From October to November, 2015

• In this phase, up to 10 identified participating teams will have access to development grant of up to INR 5,00,000 per team.

  Participating teams will showcase their functional prototypes to industry experts through a Prototype Day and receive feedback.

  Participating teams will also interact with design houses.

• STAGE IV
• Early adopter interaction & Pilot Phase From November, 2015 to January, 2016

• Participating teams will receive additional mentoring by industry players and field immersion experience with select companies.

  Up to top 3 participating teams will be identified and due diligence process for providing access to equity investment will be initiated.

• STAGE V
• Demo Day & Showcase in January, 2016

• In this final phase of the Challenge, up to top 10 participating teams will showcase their products to key market players via Demo Day.

  Showcase event to announce finalists and potential hand shake with industry players and select companies for further productization and commercialization.

  Subject to successful completion of due diligence process, up to top 3 selected teams will have access to equity investment of up to INR 20,00,000 per team.

• Timelines are subject to change without any prior intimation. Participants are requested to read the terms & conditions carefully.

 

ACCELERATOR PROGRAM & BEYOND

The Accelerator Program endeavours to facilitate design and development of commercially-viable products. Ideas from participants will be nurtured and prepared to deliver minimum-viable products (MVP) and solutions in the 8-12 week program at Pune. Up to top ten teams with potential of further development and commercialization of their MVP or solution will be shortlisted by the end of 8th week.

Participants will receive:

• Each of the identified teams for the Accelerator Program will have access to grants of INR 2,00,000 per team to be used towards MVP development
• 6-month incubation that includes a 3 month accelerator program in Pune
• Go to market preparation through participation in the Prototype day to showcase functional prototypes to experts from varied backgrounds
• Up to top 10 teams that qualify for Go to market phase, each selected team to receive development grant of INR 5,00,00
• Access to design houses, fablabs, and 3D printing
• Mentoring by industry experts and advisors and technical mentorship from Intel
• Access to Intel architecture (iA) based product kits and software development kits (SDK)
• Support towards industry linkages for field immersion and pilot testing
• Access to grants / seed fund / equity investments of a total amount of up to INR 1.5Cr
• Introduction to key market players for potential productization and commercialization through Demo day participation
• Opportunity to showcase their product at large scale event at the end of the program

 

ELIGIBILITY

Innovators, aspiring entrepreneurs, product designers, students and start-ups with the potential to innovate products that can be accelerated and brought into the market are eligible for participation.

1. Start-ups or business entities entering the Challenge must have been formed in and in accordance with the laws of India.
2. Applicants (majority shareholders) are required to be Indian resident nationals.
3. While individuals can apply to this Challenge, top 3 teams to be considered for equity investment must have a private limited company in accordance with laws of India, by 31st October 2015.
4. Participants are required to be at least 18 years of age on 1st of June, 2015.
5. The following persons cannot participate in INTEL & DST INNOVATE FOR DIGITAL INDIA CHALLENGE: (a) An employee of Intel (b) a member or employee of CIIE or Department of Science and Technology (GOI), (c) A member of the Evaluation panel, or Jury or Advisor for INTEL & DST - INNOVATE FOR DIGITAL INDIA CHALLENGE.

 

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

The participation process allows participants to take the first step towards transformation of ideas to innovation. Start innovating now!

1. Submit a Business Summary outlining the business idea in the format prescribed by the Challenge with guidelines for entry followed.
2. Business Summaries duly completed and fully filled must be submitted using the online application system before 6pm IST on Sunday, 28th June 2015.
3. Participants are requested to go to http://www.innovatefordigitalindia.intel.in/ site and click on the ‘Click here to participate’ button. This will redirect participants to www.mygov.in.
4. The participant will be taken to the task section on the www.mygov.in portal, where a link will appear for INTEL & DST - INNOVATE FOR DIGITAL INDIA CHALLENGE, which will take the participants to the program microsite within MyGov portal.
5. Participants will have to register and login on this Challenge microsite, and then fill out the application registration form and submit.
6. On successful submission, participants will receive a confirmation email.

For any further query, please write to ifdic [at] ciieindia [dot] org with full name, email id, contact number, and the query.

 

PRIZES

Up to 20 Prototyping Grants of up to INR 2 Lakh each

Up to 10 Product Development Grants of up to INR 5 Lakh each

Up to 3 seed funding / equity investment of up to INR 20 Lakh each