Innovation Challenge for Development of a Cloud Based Web Accessibility Reporting Solution

The Government of India is coming up with an Innovation Challenge for Development of a Cloud Based Web Accessibility Reporting Solution under Digital India Initiative. It’s the first time that any challenge is focusing and encouraging startups to come and build an accessibility tool that can bridge the accessibility gap in India.

India is home to not only half a billion internet subscribers, but also to a billion plus population of which approximately 2% is people with disabilities. As India continues to adopt digital for greater reach, almost all facets of the economy are realizing the benefits from leveraging technology for enhanced efficiency, convenience and effectiveness. The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has given Digital an important role to impact the daily life of each person in the entire nation.

Government Campaigns & Policies

Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) under Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment aims to facilitate empowerment and inclusion of the persons with disabilities and acts as a nodal agency to look after all development agenda of Persons with Disabilities. It had launched Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan) as a nation-wide Campaign for achieving universal accessibility for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) on December 3,2015.

The Accessible India Campaign envisages an era where no longer should societal barriers of infrastructure, and inaccessible formats stand in the way of obtaining and utilizing information in daily life.

The National Policy on Software Products-2019 has a vision to drive the rise of India as a Software Product Nation, so as to make India a global player in development, production and supply of innovative and efficient Software Products, thus facilitating growth across the entire spectrum of ICT sector. The present proposal would be one of the key products/solutions, having tremendous capability for scalability, market and domestic value addition.

In the light of these developments, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology announces an Innovation Challenge for Development of a Cloud Based Web Accessibility Reporting Solution under Digital India Initiative.

How to get started?

The Innovation Challenge is open for participation in teams having experts from all domains of a software development life cycle. The scope of work includes development of a cloud-based accessibility reporting solution that will be offered as a service to government entities. Solution must include the front-end user interface that is accessible through a web/mobile app.

Web Accessibility needs to be a priority and it is great to see goverment of India focusing on creating a monitoring mechanism that will build inclusion for people with disabilities. The Innovation Challenge will support Digital India to meet international accessibility standards.. – Ms.Shilpi Kapoor, Member Convener for Innovation Challenge

The Program which commenced on 23rd September 2021 encourages participation from across academia and industry. Participating teams are not mandatorily required to be a registered Indian Start-up/Company to apply for the challenge. The teams can register until 18th October 2021.

STAGES of the Challenge

The Innovation Challenge would be in three stages:

• Stage 1: Ideation – Top 5 teams would be selected by the Selection Panel at this stage. Each team will receive a funding of INR 20 Lakh to build the functional tool displaying the functionalities and features. Each team will be provided a mentor who will guide them with respect to the achievable targets. 
• Stage 2: Minimum Viable Product – Top 2 teams will be shortlisted at this Stage. Each team will receive a funding of INR 30 Lakh to build the fully functional product incorporating the additional features. There will be mentors assigned to the teams.
• Stage 3: Functioning Product – The Grand Jury will select one winner who will get an additional funding of INR 50 Lakh to complete the activities, which includes completion of MeitY specific customizations, documentation, optimizations etc. Further support of INR 15 lakhs per year for 2 years from the second year onwards will be provided towards Operations, Maintenance, Bug Fixes, Enhancements, etc.

To know more visit https://guidelines.india.gov.in/

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