Meet the top startups of Intel’s Digital India Challenge, and know what made them finalists

In a bid to give an impetus to local hardware and product innovation in the country, Intel India recently announced the top 10 finalists of the Intel & DST - Innovate for Digital India Challenge 2.0.

The shortlisted solutions were seen as those which could potentially accelerate the country’s Digital India vision. It comprised of projects in healthcare, smart cities, sustainability, and agriculture.

The selected teams will now advance to the 8-week NanoAccelerator program at the T-Hub start-up incubator in Hyderabad.

Under the program, each team will receive grants up to Rs. 3,00,000 from T-Hub to create minimum-viable products (MVPs). They will also have access to engineering support and hardware kits from Intel, and access to the Intel® Maker Lab in Bengaluru as well as the IoT Lab at T-Hub.

With inputs from design and user interface firms about developing user experience, the teams will undergo virtual team management and prototype monitoring. They will also receive weekly mentoring by a cross panel of experts from Intel, T-Hub and MyGov, as well as from technical specialists, venture capitalists, and business modelling experts.

The accelerator phase will culminate on Demo Day, a showcase event at T-Hub Hyderabad, where the teams will present their prototypes to a panel of venture capitalists, technology experts and industry stalwarts.

Here are the finalists of the Intel Digital India Challenge:

FOCUSING ON SMART CITIES

Oizom Instruments Pvt. Ltd.
Oizom is an environmental big data company focused on ambient air-quality. Using a dense network of low cost air pollution monitors, Oizom acquires environmental data on real time-basis. Once Oizom has a pool of environmental big data using artificial intelligence and machine learning, it will provide an environmental monitoring and prediction structure for the future.

IoTrek Technology Pvt. Ltd.
IoTrek is developing an IoT infrastructure to provide Data As A Service (DaaS). The Infrastructure consists of an IoT network and application management in the fields of energy management, asset management and environment management. IoTrek enables devices to talk to each other to bring about intelligent solutions through the LoRa network.

FOCUSING ON HEALTHCARE

AllizHealth
AllizHealth is a healthcare technology venture in the preventive health space. AllizHealth provides an integrated platform through its proprietary health risk assessment to predict the risk of every individual against various non-communicable diseases by digitally connecting them with various ecosystem partners.

NeuroTech
NeuroTech is a hardware start-up developing consumer wearables with a focus on Brain Computer Interface (BCI). NeuroBuds is a smart earphone that tracks brain activity with an in-built panic detection mode to predict and detect brain-related health issues.

iNICU
iNICU is an integrated system which monitors real-time clinical data from connected devices, laboratory, and bedside observational data and presents it in a medically comprehensive and user-definable formats to reduce mortality in NICU environments.

Thyrometer
Thyrometer is a battery operated portable thyroid measurement solution to encourage non-reported cases in rural and sub-urban areas in India. It allows users to detect thyroid at home and in local dispensaries and works in the direction of reducing time and efforts needed to get thyroid diagnosed.

SUSTAINABILITY

Gayam Motor Works
Gayam Motor Works is an electric automobile company that designs, locally manufactures and sells electric vehicles. Its portfolio includes electric four and three wheeled vehicles and electric bikes (bicycles). The vehicles have sustainable energy at their core, enabling savings on fuel, zero emissions, cost effectiveness, low-maintenance and reduced noise pollution.

Banyan Sustainable Waste Management Pvt. Ltd.
Banyan Nation is a waste management and recycling venture that leverages mobile technology to integrate India’s fragmented waste management supply chain from collection and aggregation to recycling of plastics. Banyan’s smart waste technology platform allows cities to integrate the informal sector recyclers as well as manage city waste and recycling operations through on-field sensors like biometrics attendance devices, bin sensors, and GPS truck routing.

Waste Ventures India
Waste Ventures India offers doorstep waste and recyclable collection services to households, businesses and waste pickers. It addresses the challenges of finding scrap dealers, fixed pricing and service accountability by streamlining India’s $2-$3bn recyclable collection market.

AGRICULTURE

E-DeWeeder
It offers a service to enhance crop yield with its precision farming equipment. Its vision-based machine creates digital data for weeds and
controlls it with a radio frequency selective application which delivers precise cell necrosis in weed plants.