6940 apps received in 22 days for AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge

New Delhi, July 28: "Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge" has seen a very enthusiastic response from tech entrepreneurs, startups all around the country, Union Electronics & Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

 

AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 4th of July. He had said, "Today, when the entire nation is working towards creating an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, it is a good opportunity to give direction to their efforts, momentum to their hard-work and mentorship to their talent to evolve Apps which can satisfy our market as well as compete with the world."

 

Although the last date for the submission of entries was July 18, the government had extended the submission date to July 26. It has received a total of 6,940 entries in eight categories till July 26, 2020. These include 3939 from individuals and about 3001 from organizations and companies. Amongst those received from Individuals, around 1757 applications are ready to use and the remaining 2182 are under development.

 

 

The Category-wise breakup of the Apps submitted includes 1142 under Business, 901 under Health & Wellness, 1062 under E-Learning, 1155 under Social Networking,326 under Games, 662 under Office & Work from Home, 237 under News and 320 under Entertainment.

 

Around 1135 Apps have been submitted under the other category. Around 271 of these Apps have more than 100,000 downloads with 89 of the Apps having million-plus downloads. The applicants are from all over the country including remote and small towns. The Ministry of Electronics and IT said the Screening Committees have already begun scrutinising the Apps on various parameters.

 

This App Innovation Challenge included the promotion of existing apps as well as the development of new apps. Categorized into two tracks, the Track 1 Innovation Challenge included identifying the best Indian Apps that are already being used by citizens and have the potential to scale and become world-class apps in their respective categories. The prize money for apps is between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 2 lakh depending on the category.

 

The AatmaNirbhar Bharat App ecosystem has the potential to unlock value for the Indian tech startups and help them get a pie of the multi-trillion-dollar App Economy. Just the top 3 companies with maximum downloads of Apps, this year have a total market cap of almost 2 trillion $s and are growing very fast.