DST – Lockheed Martin – Tata Trusts Invite Startups For IIGP 2.0 Challenge

The India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP) is one of the longest standing public-private partnerships to foster innovation led entrepreneurship in the country. It was launched in 2007, and has had tremendous success with the support of the Government of India’s Department of Science & Technology (DST) in partnership with the Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Post the launch of Startup India, the programme has also undergone an update. Tata Trusts has joined the new programme, and it has been rebranded as IIGP 2.0 – with a focus on innovations that have strong societal impact and also cutting-edge industrial innovations.

Currently, IIGP 2.0 is being implemented in partnership with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF), IIM-Ahmedabad, IIT-Bombay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative (MITei).

IIGP 2.0 is calling for applications to two annual parallel challenges to identify and support industrial and social innovations in India through the stages of Ideation, Innovation and Acceleration. 

University Challenge

The first challenge is at the University level. The University Challenge will cater to ideation and incubation of concepts sourced from universities across India.

Under the Ideation phase, the top 30 University teams will be mentored at IIT-Bombay on presenting ideas to a panel. They will also get an opportunity to pitch these ideas at an IIGP Innovator Showcase event.

Out of these pitches, the 10 selected teams will receive research grants of $15.5K (INR 10 Lakhs) for developing a concept/prototype, the opportunity to participate in a Design Thinking workshop, mentorship and periodic feedback.

The top 10 teams will also participate in a boot camp at IIM-Ahmedabad and receive further mentoring by IIGP partners. Out of these, the top four teams will be awarded research grants of about $40K (INR 25 Lakhs).

These grants will enable both sets of teams to advance to Phase C: Acceleration where they will work in parallel with teams from the Open Innovation Challenge – the other contest under IIGP 2.0.

Focus Areas

The focus area for applicants in the industrial sector includes:

• Robust, high-bandwidth data transmission to and from Internet of Things (Iot) sensors/processors embedded in a rotating element.
• Transparent or on-glass visualisation technology.
• Space debris management.
• Low-cost, unmanned aerial/underwater vehicles.
• Environment Tech: Industrial waste utilisation/recycling technologies.
• Energy Tech: Sustainable and affordable energy for all, energy grid security.

The focus area for applicants in the social sector includes:

• Access to safe and affordable drinking water for rural households.
• Low-cost, point-of-use, and accurate diagnostic kits for early diagnosis of infectious diseases and early screening of NCDs (Non-communicable Diseases).
• New methods to produce fertilisers to replace current processes, which are extremely capital-intensive and have significant environmental footprints.
• A robust, affordable, and durable prosthetic device with decentralised customer engagement.

For more details Click Here!

Open Innovation Challenge

The second challenge is called Open Innovation Challenge. It is focussed on innovation and acceleration of concepts sourced from the technology community at large. It is not restricted to the academic arena.

The Innovation Phase In Open Innovation Challenge

The top 50 innovators will get an opportunity to participate in a boot camp conducted at IIM, Ahmedabad.

Of these, the top 10 innovators will undergo an incubation process. The startups in incubation will receive seed funding and mentoring support to enable them to accelerate market penetration and scale-up operations, among other things.

In the Acceleration phase, the top four teams will receive additional funding to accelerate their entry to the market. Applicants can click here to access more details.

Focus Area

The focus area for this challenge includes IoT, autonomy, data analytics, electronics, hardware, energy and power technology, cyber security, among others in the industrial sector.

The focus of social sector applicants can be clean energy, affordable healthcare, inclusive Fintech, safe drinking water etc.

For more details about on the focus fields in the Open Innovation Challenge – Click Here!

As per a second impact analysis report by Ernst & Young in 2015, the programme has generated over 350 commercial agreements and close to $900 Million economic value for India in the past decade. Apart from this, it has trained more than 50 incubation managers on global best practices in incubation in the US.

IIGP has also partnered with world class institutions including the likes of IC²Institute at the University of Texas, Austin, Stanford Graduate School of Business and TiE Silicon Valley, among others in the past.

Approximately 7,000 innovations have been evaluated under the programme and over 400 innovators have been supported by providing them mentoring on product commercialisation, readiness for market, business models, IP rights, competitive positioning and mechanisms for revenue.

For the current set of applications, the programme will provide funding, mentoring, incubation and acceleration support services to the selected Indian innovators.

The last date to apply to the Open Innovation Challenge is May, 17 2017 and to the University Challenge is 31^st May 2017. Applicants can refer to www.indiainnovates.in to know more and to apply for the challenge.