Indian govt launches Digital India AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge to promote existing apps, launch new one

Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) and MyGov in partnership with Atal Innovation Mission, Niti Aayog has announced the Digital India AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge for Indian tech entrepreneurs and startups.

Working towards the aim of creating an AatmaNirbhar Bharat, this competition will promote existing apps and also help develop new ones.

In the first leg that has been launched today the best Indian apps that are already being used by citizens, and appear to have the potential to scale up and become world-class apps in their own categories, will be identified. 

The first part of the App Innovation Challenge has cash awards and incentives for apps and is aimed at creating an ecosystem where Indian entrepreneurs and startups are inspired to ideate, incubate, build, nurture and sustain tech solutions that can serve not only the country, but also the world - “Make in India for India and the World”. This first leg shall be wrapped up in a month’s time.

The second part of the App Innovation Challenge will seek to identify Indian startups and entrepreneurs/companies and encourage them with “ideation, incubation, prototyping” and roll out applications. This leg will go on for a longer course of a time. The details about the exact duration of this phase will be announced soon.

The AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge Track 1 is being launched in the following 8 broad categories:

1. Office Productivity & Work from Home

2. Social Networking

3. E-Learning

4. Entertainment

5. Health & Wellness

6. Business including Agritech and Fin-tech

7. News

8. Games.

There will also be several sub categories under each category so as the participants have ample playing field.

More details are available here. The last date of submission of entries is July 18. All applicants need to apply online to submit their proposals by registering and logging in on the MyGov portal.

There is going to be a specific jury for each leg of the challenge and experts from both the private sector and academia will evaluate the entries received. Shortlisted apps will be awarded and will also be featured on leaderboards for citizens to know about. Some of the key evaluation parameters will include ‘ease of use’ (UI/UX), robustness, security and scalability

The government will also be adopting suitable apps to guide them to maturity and list them on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM).