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ओपीसी एक सकारात्मक कदम है: राय

Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) has launched Apiary, a Centre of Entrepreneurship (CoE) in blockchain technologies at STPI incubation center in Gurugram in association with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), government of Haryana, Government Blockchain Association and several blue-chip companies and top-tier academic institutions.

STPI Apiary is expected to revolutionize the blockchain incubation ecosystem by fostering R&D innovation and entrepreneurship while nurturing start-ups to build indigenous products. The most significant feature of blockchain is that it dramatically reduces the possibilities of a data breach. With all the fraud-resistant features, blockchain technology holds the potential to revolutionize various business sectors and make processes more intelligent, secure, transparent, and more efficient compared to traditional business processes.

While launching the CoE, Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY, said, "Apiary is taking shape by bringing together all stakeholders. We can put India stack in blockchain. Let's seek those use cases where we can provide the solutions. 2020 is the time to become ambitious; it's time for us to change. We have 35 unicorns – more than Europe has. India has become a factory for unicorns and soonicorns.”

Jyoti Arora, Special Secretary and Financial Adviser, MeitY, pointed out that the government has a lot of expectations from this CoE. "We have to bring the young people to the fore and empower them to create path-breaking solutions in blockchain,” she added.

Expressing his thoughts over the launch of STPI Apiary, Dr Omkar Rai, Director General, STPI, said, "The kind of leadership we have for Apiary can help us to achieve the mandate of this CoE and succeed by translating the ideas of start-ups into world-class blockchain products. Our programmes will disperse the tech start-up ecosystem to Tier II/III cities, and we are trying to reach the unreached and facilitating support for democratising product innovation."

Outcome of the first cohort of Apiary

STPI Apiary invited applications from start-ups and entrepreneurs for ‘Idea Challenge Program in Blockchain Technology' in domains like supply chain, agriculture, finance and e-governance use cases about land records, public health, labour, service record, pension delivery and law enforcement and evidence management. Ten best start-ups are onboarded, selected from 100+ applications received, in the first cohort of Apiary.

Selected start-ups represent multiple industries, including financial services, healthcare, government, travel and hospitality and Retail. TraceFood, Jal Jaivik Bazzar and SATV Emerging Technology Private Limited are from the food supply chain domain, Swapnet Pvt Ltd and Trustless Capital are from the fintech domain, Calculus and Sofocle Innovation Labs are into e-governance and digital records, Sofexsto Technologies and Procure+ are working in healthcare sector. CredibleMe Pvt Ltd (a subsidiary of Snapper Future Tech) is from education and banking domain.
These start-ups are mentored by technocrats and domain experts. India will soon realise the massive potential of this technology and drive a new wave of decentralised applications, an STPI release said.
 

“The MoU was signed for the purpose of collaborating in eight centres of excellence with start-up innovation zones in each state capitals of Northeast India. This has been done under the vision document of ‘Digital North East 2022’, set up by STPI,” a statement said on March 30.

The centres of excellence and start-up innovation zones have been named as OctaNE which refers to all interconnected and domain-focused centres of excellence in capital cities of each Northeast state.

The MoU was signed by vice chancellor at AdtU NC Talukdar and Prabir Kumar Das, jurisdictional director at Software Technology Parks of India, West Bengal, Assam and Northeast in presence of Bandana Dutta, dean of studies at AdtU; Sunandan Baruah, Dean of faculty of engineering and technology at AdtU and Ochintya Sharma, industry leading innovator and scientist, among others.

The university administration informed that given each other’s strengths in research and facilities, the collaboration will promote entrepreneurship and mutually benefit the start-up community of the region and other industry stakeholders in similar field through the joint activities undertaken by STPI and AdtU.

“The first step towards promoting entrepreneurship has already been made with the announcement of ‘campus connect’ programme for aspiring tech innovators of Assam down town University. Under this programme, the students of Assam down town University will get an opportunity to work on designing IoT solutions specifically targeted for agriculture and allied sectors,” a statement from the university said.

The first set of student innovators are expected to be ready with their prototype by April 30, 2021. The successful innovators will get the opportunity to display their prototype in the Student Innovation Zone and will get the opportunity to be mentored by centres of excellence mentors in the final leg of the campus connect programme.