With the country under a lockdown, both government and corporates have been relying on organisations video conferencing tools mostly by foreign companies to run their business. The idea is to build a made-in-India tool which is as good as foreign apps and has the highest standards of data security and privacy built in.
The government has said that the end product which will be an Indian Software Product should be at par with international products in terms of audio and video quality, and should work in low and high network scenarios. The initiative is an attempt to promote Indian Software products as envisaged under the National Policy on Software Products.
“Announcing Innovation Challenge for Indian startups and innovators for developing a world class video conferencing solution.
Urge the innovators, software product startups to come forward and take part in this effort. #DigitalIndia,” union minister for electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a tweet.
The Challenge will operate in three rounds. In the first round ten companies or startups will be selected and will be given Rs 5 lakhs each to build the Prototypes.
In the second round, three out of the ten will be asked to build the complete solution and will be given Rs 20 lakhs each.
Of these three, the best one will be selected and will get a contract to deploy their solution for use by Government of India and State Government entities for a period of four years and will also be given Rs 1 crore in the first year and an additional 10 lakhs per year for 3 years after the first year for operations and maintenance of the solution for the Government.
