Airtel, Invest India launch innovation challenge for startups to develop solutions in 5G, IoT

The companies will be required to develop differentiated solutions in 5G, IoT, Cloud communication, digital advertising, and digital entertainment.

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel and Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation agency of the Indian government, Thursday jointly launched the ‘Airtel India Startup Innovation Challenge’ for early-stage technology companies.

The companies will be required to develop differentiated solutions in 5G such as Business-to-Business (B2B) or Business-to-Consumer (B2C) use cases and applications, innovative Internet of Things

(IoT) solutions for enterprises, Cloud communication leveraging AI and ML to create B2C or B2B products for enhancing customer engagement and experience, as well as develop solutions in the domains digital advertising and digital entertainment.

“A select few of the 10 startups shall be offered to be on-boarded onto the Airtel Startup Accelerator Program and hyper-scale their company with Airtel. Under this Program, startups gain access to Airtel’s core platform strengths of data, distribution, network and payments. Further, startups get access to Airtel’s global partner ecosystem and advisory from Airtel’s executive team,” Airtel said in a statement.

Telcos in India are working in full swing to develop consumer and enterprise-relevant use cases ahead of the sale of 5G airwaves and subsequent rollout in Q2 of 2022.

Nokia says by 2023 5G advanced solutions will come in“We have active engagements with Bharti, VI, and Jio for 5G field trials and have made several public announcements on the milestones achieved. 5G will open up new possibilities that will have a massive impact on society,industryand consumers in India…in the coming years and beyond the 5G era,”said Batra at India Mobile Congress on Wednesday.

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Airtel, for instance, is working with global companies such as Accenture, Amazon Web Service (AWS), Cisco, Ericsson, Google Cloud, Nokia, Tata Consultancy (TCS) to demonstrate enterprise-grade use cases using 5G networks.

“As a core enabler of this emerging digital ecosystem, Airtel is thrilled to be working with the Government of India to help early-stage companies navigate their growth journeys and scale up quickly and sustainably,” said Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel.

“We look forward to enabling India’s young technology startups through the Startup Innovation Challenge in partnership with Bharti Airtel. The Indian startup ecosystem is the third-largest in the world, and we are delighted that through this challenge, growing startups will be able to showcase Made-in-India solutions that solve complex global problems,” said Deepak Bagla, MD & CEO, Invest India.

Applications will close on 24th January 2022 and the results will be announced on 14th February 2022, according to the statement.

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