iDEX And Defence India Start-Up Challenge:
Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX), the flagship initiative of Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence, has reached a milestone with the signing of its 150th contract.
- The contract relates to an Indian Navy project of the Defence India Start-up Challenge (DISC 7) SPRINT edition.
- iDEX, launched in 2018, is an ecosystem to foster innovation & technology development in Defence and Aerospace by engaging innovators & entrepreneurs to deliver technologically advanced solutions for modernizing the Indian Military.
- It provides funding/grants to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), start-ups, individual innovators, R&D institutes and academia to carry out research and development.
- The iDEX-Prime aims to support projects requiring support beyond Rs 1.5 crore up to Rs 10 crore, to help ever-growing start-ups in the defence sector.
- iDEX portal was launched to provide wider publicity and better visibility of iDEX activities and enable more efficient running of future challenges through better information management.
- Objectives:
- Rapid development of new, indigenized and innovative technology.
- Creates a culture of engagement with innovative startups to encourage co-creation.
- Funding:
- iDEX is funded and managed by “Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO)”.
- iDEX has been awarded the prestigious Prime Minister Award for Public Policy in Innovation Category for the year 2021.
