Meet The 10 Finalists Of The Intel & DST – Innovate for Digital India Challenge 2.0

Intel India has announced the top 10 finalists of the Intel & DST – Innovate for Digital India Challenge 2.0. The shortlisted solutions can potentially accelerate the country’s Digital India vision, and comprise of projects in healthcare, smart cities, sustainability, and agriculture.

Recently T-Hub collaborated with Intel India, DST, MyGov and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) and launched the Challenge 2.0, inviting startups to build solutions that accelerate India’s digitisation, and to commercially develop their prototypes on Intel® Architecture.

Talking about the accelerator programme, Debjani Ghosh, Managing Director, and Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Intel South Asia said, “The accelerator program will be thrilling as teams build minimum-viable products, transitioning from mind-to-market, the real philosophy of the initiative. Last year’s winners focussed on creating solutions for domestic problems, but their innovations are being evaluated for deployment in countries with similar challenges. This is proof of the resounding success that can come with innovation.”

Under the eight-week NanoAccelerator program, each team will receive grants up to INR 3 Lakhs from T-Hub to create minimum-viable products (MVPs). They will also have access to engineering support and hardware kits from Intel, and access to the Intel Maker Lab in Bengaluru as well as the IoT Lab at T-Hub.

With inputs from design and user interface firms about developing user experience, the teams will undergo virtual team management and prototype monitoring. The participants will also receive weekly mentoring by a cross panel of experts from Intel, T-Hub and MyGov, as well as from technical specialists, venture capitalists, and business modelling experts.

The teams were shortlisted on the basis of the presentation of their ideas to jury members including Sachin Kelkar (Head, APAC Scale Program – Asia Pacific, Intel Software and Services Group); Hasit Kaji (Vice President, Special Initiatives, Tata Consultancy Services); Satya Prasad (Director, Ideas-2-Reality, internal incubator at Intel India); Chandrashekhar Bhide (Startup Mentor and ex-Vice President, DBS Bank); Praveen P.A. (Director, Aerospace and Defence, Government of Telangana); Ramesh Rao (Venture Capitalist, Aquila Partners); and Dr. Amit Garg (Medical Director, Emerging Markets, Dr. Reddy’s). The selected teams will now advance to the 8-week NanoAccelerator program at the T-Hub startup incubator in Hyderabad.

The selected startups are –

Oizom Instruments: Oizom is an environmental big data company focussed on ambient air-quality. Using a dense network of low cost air pollution monitors, Oizom acquires environmental data on real time-basis. Once Oizom has a pool of environmental big data using artificial intelligence and machine learning, it will provide an environmental monitoring and prediction structure for the future.

IoTrek Technology: IoTrek is developing an IoT infrastructure to provide Data As A Service (DaaS). The infrastructure consists of an IoT network and application management in the fields of energy management, asset management and environment management. IoTrek enables devices to talk to each other to bring about intelligent solutions through the LoRa network.

AllizHealth: AllizHealth is a healthtech venture in the preventive health space. AllizHealth provides an integrated platform through its proprietary health risk assessment to predict the risk of every individual against various non-communicable diseases by digitally connecting them with various ecosystem partners.

NeuroTech: NeuroTech is a hardware startup developing consumer wearables with a focus on Brain Computer Interface (BCI). NeuroBuds is a smart earphone that tracks brain activity with an in-built panic detection mode to predict and detect brain-related health issues.

iNICU: iNICU is an integrated system which monitors real-time clinical data from connected devices, laboratory, and bedside observational data and presents it in a medically comprehensive and user-definable formats to reduce mortality in NICU environments.

Thyrometer: Thyrometer is a battery-operated portable thyroid measurement solution to encourage non-reported cases in rural and suburban areas in India. It allows users to detect thyroid at home and in local dispensaries and works in the direction of reducing time and efforts needed to get thyroid-related ailments diagnosed.

Gayam Motor Works: Gayam Motor Works is an electric automobile company that designs, locally manufactures and sells electric vehicles. Its portfolio includes electric four and three wheeled vehicles and electric bikes (bicycles). The vehicles have sustainable energy at their core, enabling savings on fuel, zero emissions, cost effectiveness, low-maintenance and reduced noise pollution.

Banyan Sustainable Waste Management: Banyan Nation is a waste management and recycling venture that leverages mobile technology to integrate India’s fragmented waste management supply chain from collection and aggregation to recycling of plastics. Banyan’s smart waste technology platform allows cities to integrate the informal sector recyclers as well as manage city waste and recycling operations through on-field sensors like biometrics attendance devices, bin sensors, and GPS truck routing.

Waste Ventures India: Waste Ventures India offers doorstep waste and recyclable collection services to households, businesses and waste pickers. It addresses the challenges of finding scrap dealers, fixed pricing and service accountability by streamlining India’s $2 Bn-$3 Bn recyclable collection market.

E-DeWeeder: E-DeWeeder offers a service to enhance crop yield with its precision farming equipment. Its vision-based machine creates digital data for weeds and controls it with a radio frequency selective application which delivers precise cell necrosis in weed plants.