Millennium Alliance Round 6 & COVID19 Innovation Challenge-Awards By CIOReviewIndia Team

Millennium Alliance Round 6 & COVID19 Innovation Challenge-Awards

CIOReviewIndia Team | Wednesday, 19 August 2020, 13:45 IST

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Millennium Alliance Round 6 & COVID19 Innovation Challenge-AwardsIn round 6 of the Millennium Alliance and COVID19 Innovation Challenge-Award Ceremony, 49 innovative solutions imbibing 5 focus sectors of India were recognized. It highlighted the importance of creating a top-notch distributed innovation ecosystem.

The announcement for launching a new program for a class apart innovation ecosystem was completed by DST. The Secretary of DST, Prof. Ashutosh Sharma said that for having a startup formulating innovation, networking is important along with equally important facilities like support, seed money, prototyping facility. These facilities could be availed from outside the physical incubators space.

Prof. Sharma said, “DST currently supports 150 technology business incubators with over 4000 technology startups within these incubators across the country, bringing in lots of bright ideas and plans to scale up these numbers. Millennium Alliance, along with the other partners-- organisations like USAID, FICCI, DFID have been strong partners in that journey.”

The US Charge D’Affaires Edgard D. Kagan said, “The Millennium Alliance shows the significance of the partnership of USAID and Indian Government and how it has broadened to bring other partners as well, each of whom brings something to the table.” While talking about Millennium Alliance Round 6 & COVID19 Innovation Challenge-Award, he said, “this particular effort is not just about supporting innovations, but also about redoubling support to one of the most critical building blocks of US India relationship of entrepreneurship and exchanges.”

Sir Philip Barto, British High Commissioner to India, said, “The Millennium alliance illustrates the way in which all the partners have transferred together expertise in Education, Health, Clean Energy, Water & Sanitation, Agriculture sectors and local innovations to countries in Africa and South Asia. It illustrates how things designed in India through this partnership have a global impact.”

The ceremony was organized virtually on August 18, 2020, where a total of 49 innovative solutions awards worth Rs. 26 crores for innovations in 5 focus sectors in India, which are Education, Health, Clean Energy, Water & Sanitation, Agriculture, sectors where global focus is there with pilot projects conducted in the South Asian and the African countries like Nepal, Rwanda, Uganda, Bangladesh and Kenya. Furthermore, 16 innovators received awards in the category of COVID-19 Innovation Challenge. The category was finalized after a thorough evaluation process formulated by the FICCI board helped by the program partners and the subject matter experts.

In the presence of dignitaries and representatives from the partner organizations like the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), UK’s Department for International Development, Facebook and Marico Innovation Foundation, the ceremony was conducted.

Shri Ajai Chowdhry, Chair, FICCI Start-Up Committee and Founder, HCL, during the ceremony, said, “Millennium Alliance responded to the urgent need of COVID19 innovations by launching a focused call to provide funding to support Indian startups whose technologies could be quickly deployed to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. More than 400 innovators applied for the call within a span of three weeks”.

Prof. Ashutosh Sharma stated, “DST currently supports 150 technology business incubators with over 4000 technology startups within these incubators across the country.”

The Millennium Alliance, an innovation-driven and impact-focused initiative, leverages collaborative resources for identifying test and scale Indian innovations, which address the global development solutions. This consortium of partners (Public-Private Partnership), which include the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), Facebook and Marico Innovation Foundation. This program is presently in its sixth year and has played a catalytic role in providing funding, capacity building, and business development support to the Indian social enterprises.

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