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The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Singapore and France have signed up for India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) technology and talks are on with 30 more countries, said Union Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday, adding that start-ups in the country should think of ways to take it (UPI) to the world level.

Addressing the National Start-up Conference at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar, held as part of Digital India Week 2022, Vaishnaw spoke about various initiatives taken by the central government to augment the start-up ecosystem in the country while asking young enterpreneurs to take maximum advantage of the same.

Vaishnaw said that contrary to the claims of political opponents of the current central government who termed the Start-up India initiative as “jumla”, the initiative has done very well and many foreign countries were surprised to see the progress made by India in a very short time.

“It is a thousand-mile journey and we have just taken a first step… a great first step. We must celebrate it. We have to take many many more such steps,” he added.

Talking about the Digital India GENESIS (Gen-Next Support for Innovating Start-ups) initiative of the central government, Vaishnaw said that it will give start-ups access to some of large scale government sectors such as the Railways.

Vaishnaw asked the start-ups to help the government in helping MSMEs (Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises). “Can we come up with credit solution for the MSMEs? That should be a challenge we should take up…,” Vaishnaw said, asking them to think of ways to take UPI to the world.

“Can we take UPI to the world? Already three countries have signed up. But can we take it to a large scale? Because this is fabulous solution, amazing solution. Can we take it to the world in a very big way? All the companies working in fintech… I will request all of you to look at it,” said Vaishnaw.

Vaishnaw also asked the start-ups to explore ways of taking Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to the world level on the lines of UPI.

“Can we expand the open network for digital commerce (ONDC) to make it the next UPI? So, I request all of you to take a serious look at it, specially the people in e-commerce. Look at ONDC, see if how it can be a great platform. We believe that it can be the next UPI. So look at it if how you can leverage it for your business,” the minister said.

During his speech, Vaishnaw also referred to the BHASHINI (Bhasha Interface for India) initiative recently launched by the Central government.

“BHASHINI has been created with a vision by which people speaking any language can be connected with people speaking any other langugage. And languages are beyond political or geographic boundaries. We do believe that Bhashini, which has been created for Indian languages, can become a global platform for all other languages in the world,” Vaishnaw said.

New Delhi/Gandhinagar (Gujarat) [India], July 7 (ANI/NewsVoir):

During Digital India Week 2022, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) enabled funding to promising start-ups through the Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS) and Centres of Entrepreneurship (CoEs) programs in order to enable the digital start-ups to scale operations and commercialize their products. In ongoing Digital India Week, 28 promising start-ups were provided seed fund/financial help of Rs 342.5 Lakh. Under NGIS 15 start-upshave been provided seed funds of up to Rs 25 Lakh. Additionally, 13 start-ups under CoEs program have been provided with funding support up to Rs 5 Lakh. With this, STPI achieves another significant milestone in supporting the start-up ecosystem.

In the formal presence of Dr Rajendra Kumar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Government of India, Amit Agrawal, Additional Secretary, MeitY, Dr Jaideep Kumar Mishra, Additional Secretary, MeitY, Bhuvnesh Kumar, Joint Secretary, MeitY and Arvind Kumar, DG, STPI announced the 28 recipients of seed fund.

These 28 startups are members of the STPI Startup ecosystem, which includes CoEs and NGIS schemes. These start-ups are working in the fields of HealthTech, EdTech, FinTech, IoT, Electronics, Semiconductors, Robotics, Autonomous linked Electric vehicles, Mobility, and Gaming & Animation. In accordance with their plans. STPI at present is the nation's biggest ecosystem for tech startups which offers a state-of-art incubation facility, cutting-edge technological labs, mentoring, market connections besides other services to nurture start-ups to make them ready for the market. Seed funding is provided to startups for concept validation, prototype development, market research, skill training, marketing, and other preliminary startup-related tasks.

STPI announced 14 Challenge Programs to select more than 150 start-ups in different focus areas across the country

STPI has launched a series of Challenge Programs (OCPs) and announcements of seed funding to startups under NGIS and CoEs at the Digital India Week 2022. The program was launched with a vision to identify, recognize and reward aspiring, and early-stage tech entrepreneurs in the country.

“The Indian tech startup ecosystem has been revolutionized with several government initiatives like Startup India, MSH, NGIS, etc. Aligned with the vision of the government, STPI has further contributed to the growth of the startup ecosystem in Tier 2 & 3 cities by implementing NGIS. Moreover, STPI CoEs are another step towards accelerating innovation and product development in emerging technology domains, since the launch of Digital India”, said Arvind Kumar, Director General, STPI.

STPI announced 14 Challenge Programs to select more than 150 start-ups in different focus areas across the country which include:

Launch of "Build for Bharat IoT Start-up Challenge “in association with Industry: To be launched in collaboration with Jio Things Ltd. (JTL) to support 20 start-ups & entrepreneurs for building the next generation consumer/business-centric innovative solutions.
Two Challenge Programs wherein, one is the Open Challenge Program (OCP) for ESDM CoE at Bhubaneshwar and another is the Idea Challenge Program (ICP) for Blockchain CoE at Gurugram.
 OCP for ESDM CoE at Bhubaneshwar.
ICP for Blockchain CoE at Gurugram.
11 OCPs for CHUNAUTI– Pan India from eleven STPI Jurisdictional Directorates with different themes.
These programs cover the entire spectrum of emerging technology and most of the states of the country. Under “Build for Bharat IoT Start-up Challenge program", JTL will provide mentorship & support around Tech, Product Strategy, Go-To-Market along with funding support of Rs 26 Lakh in the form of monetary and non-monetary benefits to the selected start-ups. Under ICP & OCP programs, the selected start-ups and aspiring entrepreneurs shall also be facilitated through strategic networking, financial assistance, mentoring, providing support for training, marketing, patenting, and access to the labs, tools, software, and state-of-the-art incubation facility.

Till date, STPI has launched 42 OCPs/cohorts for the selection of start-ups for 20 operationalized CoEs in the emerging technology domains such as FinTech, Blockchain, ESDM, ACES Mobility, MedTech, AgriTech, IoT & AI, etc. across the country along with three CHUNAUTI (Challenge Hunt Under NGIS for Advanced Uninhibited Technology Intervention) under Next Generation Incubation Scheme. The vision is to drive the rise of India as a Software Product Nation so as to make India a global player in the development, production, and supply of Innovative, Efficient, and Secure Software Products thus facilitating the growth across the entire spectrum of the ICT sector as envisioned in the National Policy on Software Products (NPSP) – 2019.

STPI will also announce seed funding to 28 beneficiaries of CoEs and NGIS programs with funding up to Rs 25 lakh. Seed funding will significantly help the startups to realize their product dreams.