In January 2017, Qualcomm had announced an investment of USD $8.5 million for expansion of its design initiatives in India, to be called henceforth the ‘Qualcomm Design in India Program’ (QDIP). Under this program two key initiatives were announced:

The Qualcomm Design in India Challenge II, conducted in two Cycles through the year, and responding to the guidance from Shri. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon. Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics & IT, aims to spur innovation in the domestic hardware ecosystem in the areas of Smart Infrastructure, Biometric Devices, Payment Terminals, Agricultural Technology, Medical Technology and Rural IoT.

Challenge II, conducted in two Cycles through the year, and responding to the guidance from Shri. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon. Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics & IT, aims to spur innovation in the domestic hardware ecosystem in the areas of Smart Infrastructure, Biometric Devices, Payment Terminals, Agricultural Technology, Medical Technology and Rural IoT. The launch of a new Qualcomm Innovation Lab (QIL) at Hyderabad and expansion of its current Innovation Lab in Bangalore to enable India mobile and IoT ecosystem by providing advanced Camera, Audio, and RF design assistance.

Acknowledging the continued momentum of QDIC II in enabling innovation, Ms. Aruna Sundararajan, secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, said, “We are happy to support and encourage industry initiatives like the Qualcomm Design in India Program that drives technological innovation and aligns well with the mission of Digital India. Emerging technologies, such as IOT and big data, will sit at the heart of an empowered India that we envision. Programs like the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge can play a critical role in evangelizing the digital opportunity and spurring invention. By engaging with smaller companies, this initiative helps them scale faster and enables young entrepreneurs in becoming problem solvers and solution builders.”

“Innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Qualcomm. We’ve set out to accelerate growth in the digital ecosystem and we are thrilled to see an overwhelming response for QDIC in its second consecutive year, with eight select technopreneurs ready to transform their ideas from concept to product stage at our Qualcomm Innovation Labs,” said Jim Cathey, senior vice president and president, Asia Pacific & India, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “We are excited to help build a vibrant ecosystem that will scale to support the multifaceted needs of a truly hyper-connected world.”

The eight shortlisted companies for the second edition of the QDIC are:

iSquare Mobility Pvt. Ltd. – Concept – A portable wireless tele-medical solution to prescreen for breast cancer

Avanijal Agri Automation Pvt. Ltd. – Concept – Bluetooth to enhance smart irrigation controller – sensor data collection, control of motors and valves and managing the controller from a smartphone

Alexapath Private Limited – Concept – Smart accessories for microscope that makes any conventional microscope smarter – produce digital scan of slides, share it with peers, live consultation and archival of slides

iBot Control Systems India Pvt. Ltd. – Concept – Make a single board that can be used by industry and academia to build IoT apps with iBot Toolsets

Hug Innovations LLP – Concept – A first of its kind device developer platform “Hug Gestures SDK”, that enables the integration and extension of a proprietary gesture control technology with smart devices, mobile apps and PC software

Steradian Semiconductors Private Limited – Concept – Build a high resolution 4D radar that will enable true all-weather vision for autonomous vehicles and drones

Stellapps Technologies Pvt. Ltd. – Concept – Wi-Fi sensor module – wimote and IoT router – cloudtrak that can be used for smart automatic milk collection unit (smartAMCU), cold-chain monitoring as part of Stellapps IoT platform

Tagbox Solutions Private Limited – Concept – An ultra-low power wireless platform targeted towards improving efficiency of cold storage and logistics by monitoring and controlling key health parameters like temperature, relative humidity, gas, energy, door activity, etc.

Enabled by the Qualcomm Technology Licensing team, these top eight companies will now be incubated in the Qualcomm Innovation Lab and two winners will each receive a prize money of USD $75,000 at the end of the incubation period expected in August 2017.