The UK government will give the best Indian ideas £3 million to fight COVID-19 and climate change

• The government of the United Kingdom has just announced a £3 million ($3.9 million) innovation challenge in India for ideas from academicians, researchers and startups.
• The fund has been divided into two parts – £1.5 million for an idea from the AI-Data cluster in Karnataka and another £1.5 million the Future Mobility cluster in Maharashtra.
• The innovation challenge is a part of the UK-Tech partnership which was launched in April 2018.

The government of the United Kingdom has just announced a £3 million ($3.9 million) innovation challenge in India for ideas from academicians, researchers and startups on COVID-19 and climate change.

The fund has been divided into two parts – £1.5 million for an idea from the AI-Data cluster in Karnataka and another £1.5 million the Future Mobility cluster in Maharashtra.

For the AI-Data cluster, the fund is open to take applications from researchers, start-ups, organisations – but those based out of Karnataka, while for Future Mobility cluster it’s the same eligibility criteria but from Maharashtra.

The winning idea will be one to fight COVID-19 or one that promotes a greener planet across sectors like Healthcare, environmental protection, energy, future mobility, agriculture, water management, access to information among others.

“The UK and India have a strong history of research and innovation. Both Covid-19 and climate change demonstrate that the most urgent challenges are global. Never has there been a greater need for academia, business and government to accelerate innovation, and for nations to collaborate to save lives and build a better future,” said Sir Philip Barton, High Commissioner to India.

The innovation challenge is a part of the UK-Tech partnership which was launched in April 2018 to boost entrepreneurship and innovation collaboration between the two countries.

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