PM Modi launches Aatmanirbhar Innovation Challenge to promote local apps.
The challenge would be regulated under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology; it would run as promotion of existing apps and to develop new apps.
On Saturday, PM Narendra Modi launched the Aatmanirbhar Innovation Challenge and invited India’s tech and community to create an Aatmanirbhar App Ecosystem. After 20 Indian soldiers were martyred in a brutal clash at Galwan Valley, between the Indian and Chinese armies on June 15, an anti-China sentiment was born throughout the nation. Due to the continued tension on the India-China border, earlier in the week, India had banned 59 Chinese Apps, including extremely popular apps like TikTok, SHAREit, XENDER, etc.
After launching the challenge, PM Modi tweeted,” The 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.”
Aatmanirbhar innovation Challenge will be done under two phases:
The challenge is set to be carried out in two phases, first, the promotion of existing apps, and secondly, the development of new apps. Ministry of Information & Technology along with the Atal Innovation Mission, will overlook the Aatmarnirbhar Innovation Challenge.
PM Modi in a LinkedIn post said,” Today, when 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.”
Under phase 1, the government will work to identify good quality apps, for the leader-board in a month. E-learning, gaming, work from home, entertainment, business, etc. will be the categories where the government will look onto quality apps. In the second phase, the government will provide support in ideation, incubation, and prototyping of the new apps from India.
