Qualcomm Announces Winners of Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2020

INDIA, April 15, 2021 /3BL Media/ Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced the winners of its fifth edition of Qualcomm® Design in India Challenge, India’s longest running hardware startup incubation program. Twelve of India’s top startups were selected among dozens of applicants for incubation in areas of technology, business and intellectual property rights. Three winners were chosen after completing the annual incubation cycle. Adiuvo Diagnostics Pvt. Ltd. for their solution for early disease detection through optoelectronics was the winner of the 2020 cohort, bagging an award of INR 65 lakh. Planys Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and Wellnesys Technologies Pvt. Ltd. with their innovative technology offerings in underwater robotic inspection and digital healthcare respectively, were the first and second runners-up, winning awards of INR 50 lakh and INR 35 lakh.  

In addition to the awards for the top three startups, the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2020 offered the following benefits to all the finalists:

• Patent-filing incentives: Guidance through IPR workshops and reimbursements for patent filings of up to INR 1.6 Lakh for a full utility patent application filed with either the India PTO or US PTO, for up to two patent filings.
• Accelerator Services: Business accelerator services including diagnostic assessments, workshop interventions on scaling parameters such as operations, customers, competition, product, financials, organization building and seeking investments. 
• Access to Qualcomm Innovation Lab: Access to dedicated lab for startups housing state of the art test equipment for 2G-5G cellular network testing, camera and audio tuning, temperature and humidity chambers for environmental tests. 
• Participation at industry events:  Virtual events where startups had opportunity to engage with Secretaries of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT); Startups also got an opportunity to showcase their products at Qualcomm Innovation Forum and at various domestic and international digital and social platforms through stories and videos.

Furthermore, an Innovation Commercialization Fund (ICF) with an initial fund size of INR 60 Lakhs was launched in 2020. Three alumni startups were eligible for reimbursements of cost incurred towards industrial designs and manufacturing product to fulfill initial customer orders.

Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2020 cycle partnered with AGNIi - The National Technology Commercialization Program executed at Invest India (The National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency of India), as an outreach partner and received 155 applications from over 20 states including many in north-east. The Qualcomm Design in India Challenge program is part of the mission to drive innovation in India and invest in ideas that have potential to strengthen and accelerate the country’s digital economy. Launched in 2016, Qualcomm Design in India Challenge has, till date, incubated 65 hardware and artificial intelligence (AI) startups and distributed a total awards of INR 12.3 crore. The program has enabled startups to showcase their solutions at leading industry forums and gain exposure to investors, policymakers, and global audiences. These startups have collectively filed for over 150 patents, won national and international recognition, and raised over USD 82 million in funding.  

Rajen Vagadia, Vice President, Qualcomm India Private Limited and President, Qualcomm India, said, “In its fifth year Qualcomm Design in India Challenge has presented an opportunity to identify and back some of the most promising startups whose solutions could help people and businesses recover strongly from the effects of pandemic and look forward to sustained growth enabled by technology. I am proud of the initiative and the creativity that the 2020 cohort has demonstrated, and we are proud to support the winners in taking their ideas forward. The program continues to prove, year after year, that Indian startups have the potential to address many of India’s and the world’s social and economic issues; they just need the right support at the right time. With 5G and AI, Indian startups are expected to create a formidable impact, both locally and globally”

Sudeepto Roy, Vice President, Engineering, Qualcomm Incorporated, said, “We are proud and privileged to have been able to strengthen the startup ecosystem in the country for the last five years through the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge. We will continue to invest in purposeful innovations that are transforming the mobility space and crucial sectors such as agriculture to healthcare. Our larger mission is to cater to the emerging tech talent at the grassroots level by offering them a unique combination of incubation in technology, business and patenting areas while enabling their hardware and systems designs through access to Qualcomm Technologies’ platforms and technologies. We believe that the success of the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge startups is akin to our success. As India strides to becoming the global powerhouse of technology, we are privileged to be empowering startups like Adiuvo Diagnostics who are developing state-of-the-art healthcare solutions.”

Qualcomm Design in India Challenge has been inspired by the growing digital talent and the vast smart mobility ecosystem in India, which can pave the way for groundbreaking changes in the infrastructural, medical, and rural IoT spaces. The 2021 program will also provide an opportunity for Qualcomm Design in India Challenge startups to devise and design new use cases through the new 5G development board designed by Qualcomm engineers. Fostering a creative and forward-thinking entrepreneurial ecosystem continues to be a key focus area through initiatives like Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship which invests in University Masters & PhD students, Qualcomm Women Entrepreneurs India Network which empower women entrepreneurs and the L2Pro™ India software – an app developed for Indian entrepreneurs and inventors to aid them in developing deeper understanding of the valuing and protecting their intellectual property.

• Winner: Adiuvo Diagnostics Pvt. Ltd. innovated a multispectral imaging device combined with Machine Learning algorithm to aid in rapid, label-free detection and classification of wound infection-causing bacteria & fungi in under 2 minutes. 
• 1st Runner-up: Planys Technologies Pvt. Ltd for its Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) enabling underwater drone platform.
• 2nd Runner-up: Wellnesys Technologies Pvt. Ltd. developed a smart Yoga Mat with interactive feedback, real-time posture assessment and an immersive audio-visual experience.  

About Qualcomm

Qualcomm is the world’s leading wireless technology innovator and the driving force behind the development, launch, and expansion of 5G. When we connected the phone to the internet, the mobile revolution was born. Today, our foundational technologies enable the mobile ecosystem and are found in every 3G, 4G and 5G smartphone. We bring the benefits of mobile to new industries, including automotive, the internet of things, and computing, and are leading the way to a world where everything and everyone can communicate and interact seamlessly.

Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, substantially all of our engineering, research and development functions, and substantially all of our products and services businesses, including our QCT semiconductor business.

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