Stages
The Innovation Challenge is open for participation in teams having experts from all domains of a software development life cycle. It would be in three (3) stages:
Stage-1 (Ideation):
The intent of this stage is to invite bright minds to participate to propose innovative and cutting-edge ideas. Teams that fulfil the eligibility criteria will be given a chance to propose their ideas pertaining to the challenge. The proposal will cover aspects like understanding of the problem, proposed technology stack, development methodology, team composition and references to similar products.
Top 5 teams would be selected by the Selection Panel at this stage. Each team will receive a funding of INR 20 Lakh to build the functional tool displaying the functionalities and features. Each team will be provided a mentor who will guide them with respect to the achievable targets. The teams will have to update the weekly progress.
Stage-2 (Minimum Viable Product)
This is the critical phase of the Innovation Challenge to build upon the idea and develop the functional tool. The shortlisted 5 entries from Stage-1 will get a chance to present the minimum viable product to the Selection Panel and will be rated based on the functionalities achieved.
Top 2 teams will be shortlisted at this Stage. Each team will receive a funding of INR 30 Lakh to build the fully functional product incorporating the additional features. There will be mentors assigned to the teams. Queries, if any would be answered by their respective mentors but would be available to all, for fairness.
Final Stage (Functioning Product):
The team/ teams that develops the fully functioning product within the stipulated time frame meeting all the functional requirements will get
- Certificate of appreciation from the Hon’ble Minister of Electronics & IT
- Chance to deploy the fully functioning product at the NIC National Cloud and complete the security audit of the tool. The charges, if any for the security audit will be borne by NIC/MeitY.
The security audited fully functioning product will be demonstrated to the Grand Jury. The solutions would be evaluated based on parameters that will include Innovation, Replicability, Scalability, Usability, Ease of deployment/roll-out, Potential risks involved in implementation of the solution.
The Grand Jury will select one winner who will get an additional funding of INR 50 Lakh to complete the activities, which includes completion of MeitY specific customizations, documentation, optimizations etc. Further support @ INR 15 lakhs per year for 2 years from the second year onwards will be provided towards Operations, Maintenance, Bug Fixes, Enhancements, etc. All updates & version upgrades are to be provided without any additional cost. Post the completion of O&M phase, the renewal shall be done at a rate agreeable to both the Winning team and NIC, MeitY.
Teams shall be free to market the product to any entity within or outside by hosting it in an environment other than that for the Government.