The Prime Minister of India – Narendra Modi today, i.e., Saturday, July 4, 2020 announced, “AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge”, inviting the I.T. professionals and start-ups in India to create world class ‘Made in India’ apps.
The new app has been launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in partnership with the Atal Innovation Mission and NITI Aayog. The move comes days after India banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, UC Browser, We Chat, Shareit, Mi Community, Weibo and Mi Video Call, among others.
Highlighting the need of “Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge”, Modi said in an official LinkedIn post, “The entire nation is working towards creating an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, it is a good opportunity to give direction to their efforts, momentum to their hard-work and mentorship to their talent to evolve Apps which can satisfy our market as well as compete with the world.”
Taking it to twitter, he tweeted, “Today there is immense enthusiasm among the tech & start-up community to create world class Made in India Apps. To facilitate their ideas and products @GoI_MeitY and @AIMtoInnovate are launching the Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge.”
The idea is to identify the best Indian Apps that are already being used by citizens and have the potential to scale and become world class apps in their respective categories. This Innovation Challenge with various cash awards and incentives of featuring Apps on Leader Boards seeks to create an ecosystem where Indian entrepreneurs and start-ups are incentivised to ideate, incubate, build, nurture and sustain tech solutions that can serve the entire world.
The challenge has been launched in 8 categories. These are Office Productivity & Work from Home,
Social Networking, E-Learning, Entertainment, Health & Wellness, Business including Agritech and Fintech, News and Games.
Indicative List of Sub-Categories and Problem Statements
- A mobile application harnessing the most accurate facial and / or body mapping technology to allow for a true-to-life virtual try out of products like spectacles, clothes, etc.
- Mobile application for real-time speech-to-speech translation and camera translation of multiple languages
- An automated web-based application that handles business-to-business lead generation and cold emailing and is completely manageable from a mobile device itself
- Application to use mobile devices as image scanners with features like on the fly image correction, image editing, text recognition, etc.
- Application to provide cloud storage integration, cross-platform file transfer via FTP or LAN, and a root browser on mobile device
- A robust indigenous anti-virus software for mobile devices
- Application to optimize mobile device’s performance by cleaning junk/cache files, optimizing device memory and optimizing battery usage
- A mobile based live streaming platform for hosting webinars, lectures, etc.
- A mobile based messaging and video calling application
- A mobile based microblogging application
- A mobile based news application that uses cutting-edge technology to recommend the most relevant and interesting news individually to each use
- A mobile application offering satellite imagery and street maps, as well as functions such as a route planner for traveling by foot, car, or with public transportation
- A mobile based online gaming platform which also functions as a social hub for gamers
- A mobile based photo-editing application with all standard image editing features
Starting today, the challenge will close on July 18, 2020. Companies will have to submit their entries by through an online submission process. The government will appoint a jury which will include personnel from the private sector and academia to evaluate the entries. The apps will be judged in terms of ease of use, robustness, security and scalability.
Post evaluation, these apps will be given awards and features on Leader Boards for information of citizens. The first, second and third prize winners in the main category will get Rs. 20 lakhs, Rs. 15 lakhs and Rs. 10 lakhs, respectively. The winners in the sub-category will get Rs. 5 lakhs, Rs. 3 lakhs and Rs. 2 lakhs, respectively. The Government will also adopt suitable apps and guide them to maturity, listing them on Government Marketplace (GeM).
