The Indian Government has kickstarted an app innovation challenge in a bid to rival popular Chinese apps. This comes days after the government banned 59 apps including TikTok in the country. This was amidst growing unrest at the border as well as citing data theft and security reasons.
Details of Aatmanirbhar Bharat App challenge
The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission has come up with an app innovation challenge. According to a press note, the challenge has an itinerary of eight categories as stated below:
- Office Productivity & Work from home
- Social Networking
- e-Learning
- Entertainment
- Health & Wellness
- Business – AgriTech and FinTech (Incl)
- News
- Games
Additionally, there will be several subcategories inside each category that widen people’s ideas and the use case scenarios. However, key parameters like the Ease of Use, Robustness, Security and Stability will be taken into account by the evaluation team of experts from the private sector.
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The challenge, which will be completed with a month will allow submission of entries till July 18th, 2020. Following this, the evaluation process will begin and final winners are to be announced on 7th August 2020.
Winners will be given prizes based on the evaluation and prizes go as high as Rs. 20 Lakhs for the 1st prize.
Indian PM Modi’s wishes
The press note further said that the idea of the challenge is to spot the best Indian Apps which are already being used by citizens and have the potential to become world-class apps in their respective categories. It added that shortlisted apps will be placed in a leaderboard that can be viewed publicly and suitable apps will be adopted by the Government and listed on its GeM(e-Marketplace).
Also, the earlier ban on Chinese apps such as TikTok has triggered the growth of Indian alternatives. Hon’ble PM Narendra Modi said,” Today there is immense enthusiasm among the tech & start-up community to create world-class 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. I urge all my friends in the tech community to participate” in his twitter posts.
Extending this via a LinkedIn post, he said India has a very vibrant tech and startup ecosystem. The Atma Nirbhar Bharat is a good opportunity to set the right momentum for the talents in India to evolve and compete with class-leading ecosystems worldwide.