FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge - Innovate India

 

FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge - Innovate India

Hello everyone most welcome on my blog . Today in this post I will tell you about a new and most interesting event . So let's start Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in Government' that was organized by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) in collaboration with Omidyar Network India on April 22, 2021. The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology announces FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge to accelerate adoption of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in Government and build Indian FOSS Ecosystem. Through This Challenge ,innovators, start-ups, working professionals, academics and students in India to showcase their existing FOSS based innovations and/or build new, implementable, open source product innovations in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) with possible applications for Govtech in Health, Education, Agriculture, Urban Governance etc.

This Challenge is an opportunity for participants to pitch ideas to experts and receive mentorship to develop and fine-tune solutions. The winners of the Challenge will also receive cash rewards and incubation support to scale their products. Additionally, they will have the opportunity to get their solutions listed on the Government e Marketplace  , thus allowing a host of central and state government departments to procure them.

Omidyar Network India (ONI) will support the provision of mentorship sessions (optional) for this Challenge to the interested shortlisted teams with leaders from the tech, startup and functional domains, to guide the teams towards customization of their solution and driving citizen-centric and scalable design.

Open Forge - India's own platform shall be used to host the code for this innovation challenge, we'll be using for collaborative development of e-governance applications.

Objectives

India has great prospects to become a vibrant hub for FOSS innovations. India has one of the largest pools of developers in the world. This challenge intends to harness this pool of talent and nurture the growth of FOSS community in India. The challenge provides opportunity to integrate proposed solutions with existing Gov Tech projects. It aims to create an exclusive group of innovators that can be leveraged for various projects.

Problem Statement

If software platforms are the drivers of the digital economy, then reusable open source systems are its building blocks. In the case of FOSS, these building blocks are made openly available for everyone to tinker, tweak, and improve as they like and to use as building blocks to build other things.

FOSS innovators are invited to propose Ideas/Products/ Innovations, build applications, having applications in the fields of Health, Education, Urban Governance, Agriculture or any other field related to E-governance for public for two categories :

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

Eligibility

The Challenge is open for all Indian entrepreneurs and FOSS enthusiasts including startups, students, academia, coders, IT professionals, engineers, UI/UX professionals, etc.

All applicants should:

• Be Indian citizens and currently residing in India OR startups/Companies registered in India wherein majority stakeholders are Indians; and
• Register either as individuals with at most 2 supporting team members, with the team leader registering on behalf of the team.

Award Details and Recognition

1. Exciting cash prizes for the winning solutions

   The Top winning teams in each of the two categories (CRM and ERP) will receive INR 20 Lakhs (CRM) + INR 20 Lakhs (ERP) and 

2. the second team will receive INR 15 Lakhs (CRM) + INR 15 Lakhs (ERP) and 

3. the third team will receive INR 10 Lakhs (CRM) + INR 10 Lakhs (ERP) as funding to further develop and add features to the selected application, along with certificate from the Hon'ble Minister of Electronics & IT.

4. Omidyar network India (ONI) will provide a special prize of Rs 5 lakh in each category for best citizen centric safeguards.
5. A chance to receive one -on- one mentorship support by experts to develop and fine-tune your FOSS solutions during the competition
6. An opportunity to present your solution to an eminent jury of experts from the government, civil society, academia and the industry during the competition.
7. Incubation support and an opportunity to get solution(s) listed on the government platform GeM for procurement, customisation and use by departments and agencies in the center and in the states, for the winners.

Stages

The Innovation Challenge is open for participation in teams having experts from all domains of a software development life cycle, including but not limited to FOSS innovators, technology entrepreneurs and Indian Startups, Academia. The FOSS4Gov Innovation challenge will be organized in five stages.

Stage 1:

Team Creation phase

FOSS4Gov Innovation challenge will be announced and Challenge page will be created for participation on a MyGov and MSH platform. The challenge will be launched and expressions of interest (EoI) will be collected in this phase. Applicants will have to register their Teams and their interested categories on the application link.

Stage 2:

Ideation phase

The intent of this stage is to invite FOSS innovators with creative minds to participate and propose ground-breaking ideas. Teams will have to propose their innovative and cutting edge, implementable ideas / Products / Innovations in CRM and ERP with possible applications for Govtech in Health, Education, Agriculture, Urban Governance etc.

All submitted ideas for the given problem statement will be evaluated and 15 (fifteen) teams in each category would be shortlisted to participate in the next stage.

Stage 3:

Prototype Phase

The shortlisted teams should develop a prototype of the solution within a 30 days' time frame and provide a link/apk file to their working prototype for evaluation. During this phase, teams may be offered mentorship support to consult esteemed leaders in the tech industry and seek their inputs for refining their solutions. 

The prototype would be evaluated on the following parameters:

User-centricity in the Indian context (use of vernacular languages, design for low internet penetration etc.)

Potential for rapid deployment

Interoperability

Scalability

Robust citizen-centric safeguards (e.g., data protection)

All teams should build/ host their projects on Open Forge - India's own platform for collaborative development of e-governance applications. While access to the source code would be restricted to the organizing team, mentors and jurors during the course of the Challenge, the winning teams would be required make their source codes public at the end of the Challenge.

The top 5 (five) teams in each category would be selected for the presentation in front of an esteemed Jury. The evaluation parameter may include improvement in ease of use by the citizens, innovation, and usage of emerging technologies, interoperability, scalability, ease of implementation and usage.

Stage 4:

Presentation Phase

In this phase, shortlisted teams would be required to make final presentations to a Jury comprising experts from the government, 

industry, civil society and academia. Teams would be required to submit a video demonstrating how their solution works.

Stage 5:

Productization Phase (Final Stage)

The winners of the FOSS4Gov Innovation challenge will the opportunity to develop a marketable product that may be listed on a procurement portal such as GeM for easy procurement by government agencies. MeitY will provide handholding and incubation to the winners in order to scale their products.

Important Dates:

Launch of Innovation Challenge:  26th July 2021

Last Date for Registration (Team formation):  17th August 2021

Last Date for Submission of Ideas : 1st September 2021

Declaration of Teams Shortlisted for Building Prototype <15+15> : 10th September 2021

Submission of Prototype : 11th October 2021

Declaration of Teams Shortlisted for Final Presentation <5+5>:

 21st October 2021

Presentation of Top Teams in each category : 29th October 2021

Declaration of Results:  3rd November 2021

Incubation for winners to upscale :  3rd November 2021 onwards

Terms and Conditions:

👉This is for Indian nationals who are residing in India.

👉Incomplete applications will not be considered.

👉All entries obtained through unauthorized sources or which are incomplete, illegible, mutilated, altered, reproduced, forged, irregular, or fraudulent in any way or otherwise are automatically void.

👉(Organizer) reserves the right to select or reject any submission without assigning any reasons whatsoever.

👉The decision of (Organizer) in relation to problems posed is final and binding.

👉The Participants shall preserve the confidentiality of all communication & information and shall not use the same for any other purpose whatsoever.

👉All entries obtained through unauthorized sources or which are incomplete, illegible, mutilated, altered, reproduced, forged, irregular, or fraudulent in any way or otherwise not in compliance with the rules are automatically void.

👉The form should be submitted in English.

👉It is strongly advised not to wait until the deadline for the submission of entries. Organizers shall not be responsible for non-receipt of entries on account of server errors/ traffic.

👉The organizers reserve the right to select or reject any submission without assigning any reasons whatsoever and without thereby incurring any liability to the participant(s) whatsoever.

👉Applicants should avoid uploading any proprietary information on the platform as the submitted entries shall be shared with evaluators & mentors for the purpose of evaluation & mentoring. Organizers do not take any responsibility in case of patent right(s) violation(s) if the innovation(s) submitted is awaiting patent or is in the process of patent filing.

👉The participants represent that the submission is original, and is not copyrighted by anyone or any firm. The participants also represent that the submission contains no violation of any existing copyright or another third party right including but not limited to copyrights, patents, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets or other proprietary rights or any material of an obscene, indecent, libelous or otherwise unlawful nature and does not infringe the rights of others. The participants are solely responsible for the accuracy of any information and conclusions contained in their respective submissions. Further, the participants understand that any submission in violation of the instant clause shall stand disqualified, without any intimation to the participants.

👉The organizers shall be entitled to, without limitation, publish the submissions (or part(s) thereof) on their promotional materials, including but not limited to websites, their newsletters or any other publications; without payment of additional consideration, except where prohibited by law.

👉Organizers reserve to cancel the competition or modify the rules, dates of the competition anytime. The Organizers shall have no liability whatsoever for any inconvenience/loss directly or indirectly caused to any Participant due to such modification of rules/cancellation of competition and the Participants shall accordingly not be entitled to raise any claims pertaining to the same.

👉Once the participants have made submissions on the platform, they shall have no claim even in the event of stoppage/cancellation of the competition.

👉Removal/ voluntary withdrawal of members from any team is not encouraged. No other form of team modification will be entertained at any point.

👉Teams shall maintain detailed documentation of their idea and solution at all stages of the Challenge for reference and record purposes. The organizers reserve the right to review these documents any time during the event.

👉Any decision by the organizers on any aspect of the Challenge at any point of time during the course of the event is final and binding to all the participants, without any reservations.

👉The Participants shall indemnify and keep indemnified organizers against any claim raised by any party regarding the submission made by the participants. The participants shall be liable to indemnify the organizers for all costs and expenses they may have to incur against such claims. 

Applications will close on 17 August 2021.

No, there is no fee for registering and participating in the Challenge.

Yes, participants can register individually or in teams of 3.

The #FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge is open to all Indian citizens and currently residing in India and startups/companies.

Website : Click Here

Registration : Click Here 

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