Bharat App Innovation Challenge Attracts 7K Entrepreneurs, Startups

The Indian government’s AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge, meant to boost the adoption and development of Indian applications over foreign ones, has received 6940 entries from entrepreneurs and startups across the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched this challenge on July 4 and the last day of participation was July 26. The government issued a statement on Monday to highlight these entries are from 8 categories — office productivity & work from home, social networking, e-learning, entertainment, health & wellness, business including agritech and fintech, news and Games. A majority of the submissions are under the social networking category followed by business, health & wellness, and e-learning.

“The applicants are from all over the country including remote and small towns. This shows the talent that exists in our country and this App Innovation Challenge is the right opportunity for Indian Tech Developers, Entrepreneurs and companies to build for India at a scale that is unparalleled anywhere in the World,” the statement read.

Among the apps submitted, 3,939 were developed by individuals, while the remaining 3,001 entries were from organisations and companies. The Indian government also noted that amongst the submissions from individuals, around 1,757 applications are ready to use and the remaining 2,182 are under development. Among the enterprise apps, 1,742 apps have already been deployed and the remaining 1,259 are under development.

In terms of downloads, nearly 271 apps have more than 100K downloads, and 89 have more than a million. The Indian government has also confirmed that the screening committees have already started scrutinising these apps on various parameters, but the real challenge will be to find a robust, scalable, secure solution that offers an experience to keep users engaged and keep retention high.

The announcement coincides with the Indian government’s decision to ban another 47 apps that were operating as the clones of the 59 Chinese apps banned last month. These apps were reportedly violating India’s data protocol and were compromising the data safety of users. It has also drawn up a list of another 275 Chinese apps, to be examined for possible violations of national security and user privacy.

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