FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge 2021 by Govt of India [Prizes Upto Rs. 90L] | Last Date of Registration 17th August

Applications are invited for FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge 2021 by the Govt of India. The final date of registration is 17 August 2021.

About FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge 2021

The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) pronounces #FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge to speed up the adoption of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in Government and construct Indian FOSS Ecosystem. Through this challenge, we invite innovators, start-ups, working professionals, teachers, and students in India to showcase their current FOSS based innovations and/or construct new, implementable, open-source product improvements in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) with possible applications for Govtech in Health, Education, Agriculture, Urban Governance and many others.

This Challenge is a chance for participants to pitch ideas to experts and receive mentorship to develop and fine-tune options. The winners of the Challenge can even receive money rewards and incubation assistance to scale their products. Additionally, they’ll have the chance to get their solutions listed on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), thus permitting many central and state government departments to obtain them.

Omidyar Network India (ONI) will assist the supply of mentorship sessions (optional) for this Challenge to the shortlisted groups with leaders from the tech, startup, and functional domains, to guide the groups in the direction of customization of their resolution and driving citizen-centric and scalable design.

OpenForge – India’s personal platform shall be used to host the code for this innovation challenge, which we’ll be using for the collaborative growth of e-governance applications.

Eligibility

The Challenge is open for all Indian entrepreneurs and FOSS enthusiasts together with startups, students, academia, coders, IT professionals, engineers, UI/UX professionals, and many others. All candidates should:

• Be Indian residents and presently residing in India OR startups/Companies registered in India whereby majority stakeholders are Indians; and
• Register both as individuals with atmost 2 supporting group members, with the group leader registering on behalf of the group.

Important dates

Sr. No	Activities	Stage	Date
1	Launch of Innovation Challenge	I	26th July 2021
2	Last Date for Registration (Team formation)	I	17th August 2021
3	Last Date for Submission of Ideas	II	1st September 2021
4	Declaration of Teams Shortlisted for Building Prototype <15+15>	III	10th September 2021
5	Submission of Prototype	III	11th October 2021
6	Declaration of Teams Shortlisted for Final Presentation <5+5>	III	21st October 2021
7	Presentation of Top Teams in every category	IV	29th October 2021
8	Declaration of Results	IV	3rd November 2021
9	Incubation for winners to upscale	V	3rd November 2021 onwards

Problem statement

If software platforms are the drivers of the digital economic system, then reusable source open-source techniques are its constructing blocks. In the case of FOSS, these constructing blocks are made openly obtainable for everybody to tinker, tweak, and enhance as they like and to use as constructing blocks to construct other things.

FOSS innovators are invited to suggest Ideas/Products/ Innovations, build applications, having applications within the fields of Health, Education, Urban Governance, Agriculture, or any other discipline associated with E-governance for the public for 2 categories :

• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Stages of Challenge

The Innovation Challenge is open for participation in groups having consultants from all domains of a software development life cycle, together with however not restricted to FOSS innovators, technology entrepreneurs, and Indian Startups, Academia. The FOSS4Gov Innovation challenge shall be organized in 5 phases.

Team Creation phase: FOSS4Gov Innovation problem shall be introduced and a Challenge page shall be created for participation on a MyGov and MSH platform. The problem shall be launched and expressions of interest (EoI) shall be collected in this phase. Applicants should register their Teams and their classes on the application link.

Ideation phase: This stage intends to ask FOSS innovators with inventive minds to take part and suggest ground-breaking concepts. Teams should suggest their revolutionary and leading-edge, implementable concepts / Products / Innovations in CRM and ERP with possible applications for Govtech in Health, Education, Agriculture, Urban Governance, and many others. All submitted concepts for the given problem statement shall be evaluated and 15 (fifteen) groups in every category can be shortlisted to take part within the next stage.

Prototype Phase: The shortlisted groups should develop a prototype of the answer within a 30 days’ time frame and supply a link/apk file to their working prototype for evaluation. During this part, groups could also be offered mentorship assistance to seek the advice of esteemed leaders within the tech industry and search their inputs for refining their options. The prototype can be evaluated on the next parameters:

• User-centricity within the Indian context (use of vernacular languages, design for low internet penetration, and many others.)
• Potential for speedy deployment
• Interoperability
• Scalability
• Robust citizen-centric safeguards (e.g., data safety)

All groups should construct/ host their projects on OpenForge – India’s own platform for collaborative growth of e-governance applications. While access to the source code can be restricted to the organizing team, mentors, and jurors throughout the course of the Challenge, the winning teams can be required to make their source codes public at the end of the Challenge.

The top 5 (five) groups in every class can be chosen for the presentation in front of an esteemed Jury. The analysis parameter might include improvement in ease of use by the residents, innovation, and usage of rising technologies, interoperability, scalability, ease of implementation, and utilization.

Presentation Phase: In this part, shortlisted groups can be required to make final presentations to a Jury comprising experts from the government, industry, civil society, and academia. Teams can be required to submit a video demonstrating how their solution works.

Productisation Phase (Final Stage): The winners of the FOSS4Gov Innovation challenge will the opportunity to develop a marketable product that could be listed on a procurement portal such as GeM for easy procurement by government agencies. MeitY will present handholding and incubation to the winners to scale their products.

FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge 2021 Awards

• Exciting cash prizes for the winning options Top winning groups in each of the 2 classes (CRM and ERP) will obtain INR 20 Lakhs (CRM) + INR 20 Lakhs (ERP) and the second group will obtain INR 15 Lakhs (CRM) + INR 15 Lakhs (ERP) and the third team will obtain INR 10 Lakhs (CRM) + INR 10 Lakhs (ERP) as funding to further develop and add features to the chosen application, together with a certificate from the Hon’ble Minister of Electronics & IT.
• Omidyar Network India (ONI) will present a special prize of Rs 5 lakh in every category for the greatest citizen-centric safeguards.
• An opportunity to receive one-on-one mentorship assistance by experts to develop and fine-tune your FOSS solutions throughout the competition
• An alternative is to present your solution to an eminent jury of consultants from the government, civil society, academia, and the industry throughout the competition.
• Incubation support and an opportunity to get a solution(s) listed on the government platform GeM for procurement, customization, and use by departments and agencies within the centre and in the states, for the winners.

Click here to view the official notification of FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge 2021 by the Govt of India.