Qualcomm Incorporated announced the winners of Cycle II of its Qualcomm® Design in India Challenge 2017. Bangalore based, Sensara Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. and Lightmetrics Technologies Pvt. Ltd. won the challenge with their innovative technologies and solutions. The winners took home prize money of $75,000 each.
Launched in 2016, the program has incubated twenty-four start-ups so far with an overall investment of over USD 8.5Mn. An accelerated design program that supports fast design cycles and time to market, it utilizes Qualcomm’s longstanding presence in India and its technologies to help Indian companies design and create products in the IoT space for global markets. In September 2017, Qualcomm had announced, Tagbox Solutions Pvt. Ltd. and Steradian Semiconductors Pvt. Ltd as the winners of Cycle I of Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2017 at the India Mobile Congress in New Delhi.
Congratulating the winners, Jim Cathey, senior vice president & president, Asia Pacific & India, Qualcomm International, Inc. said, “In this cycle of the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2017, we witnessed creative ideas for innovative products and services across sectors in Smart Cities, Med-Tech, Machine Learning, Fin-Tech and Automotive. It is a proud moment for Qualcomm to announce these two winners who have created cutting edge technologies and solutions addressing the needs of the present world.”
Qualcomm also announced the top fifteen finalists for Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2018 program, who will receive initial seed money of USD10,000 each to develop or further refine their prototypes using Qualcomm® technologies in the Qualcomm Innovation Labs. Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2018 will see its latest cohort of start-ups address new opportunities in the domains of Smart Infrastructure, Biometric Devices, Payment Terminals, Agricultural Technology, Medical Technology and Rural IoT. Three winning start-ups will be selected from these fifteen shortlisted entries in early 2019.
Talking about what to expect in the 2018 program, RajenVagadia, country manager, business development, Qualcomm India Pvt. Ltd., said, “We are thrilled with the overwhelming response we received for the 2018 chapter, which marks an increased focus on putting start-ups on an accelerated path towards growth and development. Our shortlisted finalists come from all over India, representing a diverse range of products & applications across different spheres. Augmenting this diversity, we have three of our shortlisted start-ups run by women entrepreneurs.”
Vagadia added, “Apart from the technical incubation support which has been highly appreciated by the start-ups, we’ve added new elements to the program, like encouraging the start-ups to file patents for their innovations, enabling greater visibility. We provide mentorship to these start-ups, through a professionally managed accelerator program which helps them assess and scale their operations, which we have seen is very important for success of these brilliant ideas of start-ups, in the commercial world.”
Supported by Qualcomm Technologies, these top fifteen companies will be incubated at the Qualcomm Innovation Labs in Bangalore and Hyderabad. New elements of the 2018 program:
The fifteen shortlisted companies for the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2018 edition are: