MeitY Announces Innovation Challenge for Video Conferencing Solution, Winner to Get Rs 1 Crore

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under the Digital India programme has announced an Innovation Challenge for Video Conferencing Solution in which both industry and academia can participate. The challenge has been launched after taking into account the fact that video conferencing has become a part and parcel of the lives of Indians due to the work from home culture initiated by the Coronavirus lockdown.

“With more than half a billion internet subscribers, India is riding high on the digital front. All facets of the economy are leveraging technology for wider reach, convenience, and effectiveness. The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has made Digital the most important part of our daily life,” says MeitY.

With organizations asking having asked employees to work from home, the trend that was earlier synonymous with the IT industry has now become a household term, adds MeitY. Therefore, the Innovation Challenge has been launched with a vision to drive the rise of India as a Software Product Nation, and to make the country a global player in the development, production, and supply of innovative and efficient software products. MeitY hopes that challenges like this will facilitate growth across the entire spectrum of the ICT sector.

What is the MeitY Innovation Challenge for Video Conferencing Solution?

Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, businesses had to adopt a work from home policy overnight of which video conferencing became an extremely important aspect. Businesses, having seen the benefits of these solutions during the lockdown period, may now become reliant on them.

Along these lines, MeitY has announced the challenge to develop a Video Conferencing Solution that shows capabilities in terms of scalability, market reach, and domestic value addition. The solution must be proposed keeping in view pertinent points such as:

• Should support all video resolutions and audio quality, should work in low and high network scenarios
• Should be low on the usage of power or processor
• Should not have any external hardware dependency and should work on any device
• Should have chat option during conference, even the multi people conference
• Should have sign-in and non-sign-in options to join a conference
• Should have encrypted network communication, and other functionalities regarding which more information has been provided here.

What the MeitY Innovation Challenge for Video Conferencing Solution Encompasses?

The challenge will be conducted in three stages namely Stage 1 – Ideathon wherein participating teams will have to share their solution. Ten teams with innovative and cutting edge solutions will be selected and provided a funding of Rs 5 lakh each to build the prototype.

Stage 2 – Prototype that involves the building of the prototype and the top three selected teams will receive Rs 20 lakhs each to build the solution.

Stage 3  - Solution building wherein the winner will receive Rs 1 crore and a certificate from the Minister of Electronics and IT towards deploying the solution for use by Government of India and State Governments for a year and further support at Rs 10 lakhs per year towards operations and maintenance, for a period of 3 years.

Participants can be from industry and academia, and the participating teams need not necessarily be registered Indian companies or startups. However, the teams selected at Stage 1 will then have to register themselves as Indian startups or company. Those interested to take part in the challenge are advised to go through the MeitY Startup Hub website in detail.