Atal innovation Mission collaborates with Ministries, Partners to support Start Ups with COVID-19 solutions

NITI Aayog’s Flagship Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) on July 15 coordinated and concluded a series of virtual COVID-19 Demo-Days. It is an initiative to identify and help the promising start-ups that have the potential for COVID-19 innovations.

For the initiative, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has teamed up with other Ministries and Partners. With the help of the startups, AIM aims at fighting COVID-19 which has caused economic shutdown worldwide.

The initiative was launched in partnership with other government bodies, under the direction of Dr. Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India and Dr. Vinod Paul, Member Health, NITI Aayog.

Objective of the initiative:

As per R. Ramanan, Mission Director AIM, NITI Aayog, the joint initiative is expected to provide much-needed help to India’s mobilization efforts related to COVID-19 related services, products, and solutions and give a start-up ecosystem an effective platform to contribute in the current scenario.

Key Highlights:

• The initiative by the government has been launched in partnership with the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology, Start-Up India, and other ministries.

• Over 1000 COVID-19 related startups from different sets of categories including preventive, assistive, and curative solutions were put through two rounds of evaluation, out of them, 70 were shortlisted for Virtual COVID-19 Demo Days.

• These startups will be receiving support in the form of funding, supply chain and logistics, access to manufacturing abilities, and finding the right vendors and mentors.

• A total of 9 DemoDays for PPE, medical services, Technology Solutions, Sanitization, etc. were held and led by R. Ramanan, Mission Director AIM, NITI Aayog.

The outcome of the DemoDays:

Because of the virtual Demo Days, 340 connections involving more than 50 startups have been made between the various investor groups/organisations and startups,

Organizers also assisted the startups by suggesting the crucial additions to their ideas, testing requirements, advising them on various proposals, providing access to the markets and buyers, and facilitating the registration on portals such as GeM.