KOLKATA: US chipmaker Qualcomm Inc on Tuesday announced the 10 finalists of the first edition of the Qualcomm 'Design in India' Challenge, that was launched in December 2015.Qualcomm Inc in association with National Association of Software & Services Companies ( Nasscom ), has launched the the Qualcomm 'Design in India Challenge’, which aims to catalyse creation of a product and hardware design ecosystem in India in the domains of smartphones, tablets and Internet of Things (IoT) for agriculture, automotive, banking, education, healthcare, smart cities and wearables."We are delighted to see Qualcomm join forces and contribute to the government’s ' Make in India ' vision," telecom secretary J S Deepak said Tuesday in an official statement. "The Qualcomm Design in India Challenge will have a positive impact towards making India a global hub for hardware design," he added."At DeitY it is our endeavour to promote Electronics System Design & Manufacturing industry with a recent focus on mobile manufacturing," said Aruna Sharma, secretary, department of industry electronics & information technology (DeitY)."We appreciate the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge that has the potential to foster game-changing product innovation, design and development of mobile technologies and IoT, and support the Government’s Make in India vision.""Qualcomm is excited to support the possibility of making India a hub for design capabilities that would drive the value chain from a service focused to product capable industry, inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s 'Make in India' vision," said Sunil Lalvani, Vice President and President of Qualcomm India & South Asia."We are happy to be associated with Qualcomm in this progressive effort, to actualise the 'Make in India' vision," said R. Chandrashekhar, President, Nasscom."This initiative, closely aligned with Nasscom's own vision to 'Connect, Collaborate and Co-create', is a great platform to drive innovation."This next stage of the challenge builds on the commitment made by Qualcomm’s executive chairman Paul E. Jacobs, when he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Digital Economy event held last September in San Jose. Jacobs had announced Qualcomm’s support for the Modi’s government’s Digital India and Make in India vision, to introduce a Design in India Initiative to encourage the creation of a local product design ecosystem.Following this, Qualcomm announced the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge in December 2015 and set up the Qualcomm® Innovation Lab in Bangalore, to provide technical and engineering support to the 10 finalists in their endeavour to develop innovative ideas into products and hardware designs.The 10 shortlisted companies for the first edition of the Qualcomm 'Design in India Challenge' are Aarav Unmanned Systems, Artificial Machines, Carnot Technologies, Green Robot Machinery, iFuture Robotics, Lensbricks Technology, Myelin, Treepie Computing, Uncanny Vision and Watchy Technology.These 10 companies will be incubated in the Qualcomm Innovation Lab and the top three winners will receive a funding of $100,000 each at the end of the incubation period expected around November 2016.