Incubators sign MoUs
The infinite potential of the MSMEs/start-ups for future growth of the defence sector in India has recognition, Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik said.
Addressing the ‘Def Connect 2019’ conference, he also noted expertise of stakeholders of iDEX in the defence ecosystem
Naik pointed out that iDEX, launched on 11 Nov 2019, would provide wider publicity and better visibility of stakeholders’ activities and enable more efficient running of future challenges through better information management.
Addressing the same defence conference, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant highlighted the potential of startups in disrupting all aspects of life and praised the iDEX efforts while promising startups innovators all support as they innovate for Indian defence.
Memoranda of Understanding were exchanged between three new incubators (Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru, IIT Hyderabad and Maker Village) at the conference.
The iDEX initiative of the Department of Defence Production was launched in April 2018 with the objective to encourage and nurture innovations in the Indian Defence sector and create an ecosystem where Startups, MSMEs and individual innovators could interact easily with the Indian defence establishment and provide the latest technological innovations for specific challenges experienced in operational environments through co-development and co-production of innovative solutions.
In order to provide an opportunity to innovators to provide their innovative ideas on technologies which find its applications in defence sector, an iDEX Open Challenge was also launched on 11 Nov 2019.
More than 600 startups are participating in the two Defence India Start-up Challenges — DISC-I and DISC-II while DISC-III was launched at the conference.
Forty-four winners of these challenges are presently being provided with necessary funding for developing proposed innovative technologies. The winners of DISC-I & DISC-II were invited to the event and the 1st tranche of funding under iDEX was released.
The stakeholders of the iDEX ecosystem are: Ministry of Defence (MoD), iDEX selected start-ups, partner incubators, Defence Innovation Organisations (DIO), nodal agencies (Indian Army, Navy, Air Force), DRDO, DPSUs, Indian Ordnance Factories (IOFs), MSMEs and Industry associations. More than 350 startups participated in the event, said Defence Ministry. fiinews.com
