Participate in India-Israel Innovation Challenge now! Feed with your innovative ideas for water technology

New Delhi, November 10: India-Israel relations not only define emotional connections but extend ‘innovative’ shoulders to each other. To come up with innovative solutions for agriculture, water technology and healthcare sector, India-Israel Global Innovation Challenge is on! Hurry up if you think you can contribute to helping with different ideas.

The most promising proposals will win:

Earlier when the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu visited India, both Netanyahu and PM Modi launched a bilateral innovation challenge for startups in Israel and India – India-Israel Innovation Bridge. This was done to come up with innovative solutions for budding ‘Start-Ups’.

The challenges have been divided into three sections: Healthcare, Agriculture and Water Technology.

Healthcare: [Challenge #1]

In rural India, the access to healthcare is restricted to primary health centres catering just the basic healthcare services. Typical health problems in rural India are related to nutritional deficiencies, lack of maternal and perinatal condition support, common occurrence of communicable diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, tuberculosis, and respiratory diseases. Shortage of hygiene infrastructure, lack of awareness, limited access to facilities, lack of trained medical personnel, dearth of medicines and good doctors are the key challenges faced by more than 70 percent of India’s population living in rural areas today.

The India-Israel Bridge is seeking “low fidelity, high frequency” solutions for diagnostics in rural India. The solutions will focus on cheap, low fidelity hardware that can capture recurring diagnostic data at a high frequency, and use machine learning and algorithmic data manipulation to accurately diagnose and predict conditions.

[Challenge #2]

Every year, roughly 5.8 million Indians die from heart and lung diseases, stroke, cancer and diabetes. In other words, 1 in 4 Indians risks dying from a Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) before they reach the age of 70. India stands to incur a loss of $4.58 trillion between 2012 and 2030 due to NCDs.

Cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, and other NCDs are estimated to account for 60% of all deaths in India, making them the leading cause of death – ahead of injuries and communicable, maternal, prenatal, and nutritional conditions.

We are seeking high quality, innovative solutions that are affordable, accessible and sustainable, focusing on constant and real time health monitoring, home care, remote care, periodic counseling and advice on health management. This needs to take into account the existing technology and infrastructure in India, demand creation and service delivery.

Agriculture: [Challenge #1]

Poor access to reliable and timely market information for the farmers, absence of supply & demand forecasting, poorly structured and inefficient supply chains, inadequate cold storage facilities and shortage of proper food processing units, large intermediation between the farmers and the consumers are some of the major causes for the losses.

The India-Israel Bridge is seeking technological solutions to increase the efficiency of the agricultural chain and ultimately reduce waste while increase farmers’ earnings.

[Challenge #2]

One of the biggest issues facing the agricultural sector in India is low yield: India’s farm yield is 30-50% lower than that of developed nations.

Average farm size, poor infrastructure, low use of farm technologies and best farming techniques, decrease of soil fertility due to over fertilization and sustained pesticide use, are leading contributors to low agricultural productivity. ]

The India-Israel Bridge is seeking affordable, accessible, easy-to-use technologies, products or services to enhance agricultural productivity in India.

Water Technology: [Challenge #1]

Due to lack of low cost, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, more than 70% of sewage in India is discharged untreated, polluting rivers, coastal areas and wells pouting three-fourths of the country’s water bodies. Ingenious ways of treating waste water is fast emerging as the key solution for meeting the ever-increasing demands of water consumption and conservation.

Secondly, the water intended for drinking is withdrawn from this same source, and again not adequately treated, creating significant public health problems.

The India-Israel Bridge is seeking innovative, low energy, cost effective sustainable solution for waste water treatment/desalination/recycling or purifying large scale water sources and surface water.

[Challenge #2]

In an unprecedented move, the government of India has committed to providing every person living in rural India safe and adequate drinking water. That means enough water to drink, cook, bathe and water livestock that is safe for these purposes. By its guidelines, this is quantified at 70 litres per capita per day (lpcd) by 2022. Although India has made improvements over the past decades to both the availability and quality of drinking water systems, its large population has stressed planned water resources and rural areas are left out. India lacks overall long-term availability of replenishable water resources with many water sources being contaminated and over-exploited.

The India Israel Bridge is looking for Innovative, affordable, effective sustainable solution that produces potable drinking water at point of use in both rural and urban areas. Target price point under USD 1 cent per liter. This can be done on individual, family or village scale. Solution should consider constraints obtaining to weather (wet areas with misplacement of water vs. drought), infrastructure, connectivity, ease of use etc.