On 6th October, 2020, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal released the results of the First Edition of National Startup Awards 2020 in a virtual ceremony.
The First Ever National Startup Awards has been conceived by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
Objective:
i.The award rewards startups & ecosystems which are building innovative products, solutions and scalable enterprises with high potential of employment generation & wealth creation.
ii.The award takes into consideration the contribution of a product or solution to social good.
Key Points:
i.The First edition of awards invited applications from across 12 sectors and 35 sub-categories.
ii.The 12 sectors are Agriculture, Education, Enterprise Technology, Energy, finance, Food, Health, Industry 4.0, Space, Security, Tourism and Urban Services.
iii.Focus was given on startups which were led by women, academic institution based startups, and startups working in rural areas.
iv.The awards were given based on six parameters Innovation, Scalability, Economic Impact, Social Impact, Environmental Impact, and Inclusiveness and Diversity.
v.A total of 1641 applications were received from startups from all over the country, it included 654 women-led, 165 academic institution based and 331 startups working in rural areas.
Rewards:
i.The winning startups will get a cash prize of INR 5 Lakh each and an opportunity to present their solutions/products to public authorities and corporates for pilot projects and work orders.
ii.The Key building blocks of a robust Startup ecosystem, one exceptional Incubator and one Accelerator each will get a cash prize of INR 15 Lakh.
Notable Winners:
i.Kerala based Genrobotics Innovations Private Limited’s manhole-cleaning robot Bandicoot won the award in ‘Campus-initiated startups’ category.
ii.Delhi based Intello Labs private Limited’s digitised food quality assessment across supply chain from farm to table won the award in ‘Agriculture’ sector.
iii.Bengaluru based Niramai Health Analytix Private Limited which offered a solution for early detection of breast cancer won the award in the ‘Health’ sector.
The full list of Awards can be accessed here – National Startup Awards 2020
‘Startup India Showcase’ & ‘Blockchain based Certificate Verification System’:
During the virtual event, ‘Startup India Showcase’ & ‘Blockchain-based Certificate Verification System’ were launched.
‘Startup India Showcase’
It is part of Startup India portal, and is intended to become an online discovery platform for promising startups.
‘Blockchain-based Certificate Verification System’
It enables instant verification and access to certificates of recognition issued by DPIIT. It can be accessed by Government Departments and third parties to verify status of recognized startups for accessing different opportunities.
Recent Related News:
i.On September 11, 2020 DPIIT released the 2nd Edition of ‘States on Support to Startup Ecosystems 2019’.
ii.On 19th August 2020, The National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) under the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research- National Aerospace
Laboratories (CSIR-NAL), partnered to establish an innovation cum incubation center to promote the startup in the field of aerospace technologies.
About Ministry of Commerce and Industry:
Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is a department under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Union Minister – Piyush Goyal
Minister of State (MoS) – Hardeep Singh Puri, Som Parkash
