Qualcomm Incorporated today announced the top two winners from Cycle I of its Qualcomm Design in India Challenge II(QDIC II) at India Mobile Congress being held at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. Since the beginning of 2017, eight shortlisted companies were incubated with initial prize money of USD 10,000 each and engineering support at Qualcomm India’s Innovation Labs in Bangalore and Hyderabad, wherein they could transform their ideas into prototypes. In the final round, the companies were judged by the jury members consisting of Industry, Government and Qualcomm executives. Two companies were awarded USD 75,000each as the winners of the Challenge in Cycle I.
The winners of the Cycle I of QDIC II are:
Tagbox Solutions Private Limited - Concept - An ultra-low power wireless platform targeted towards improving efficiency of Cold Storage and Logistics by monitoring and controlling key health parameters like temperature, relative humidity, gas, energy, door activity, etc.
Steradian Semiconductors Private Limited - Concept - Build a High Resolution 4D Radar that will enable true all-weather vision for Autonomous Vehicles and Drones.
Speaking on the occasion, Alex Rogers, executive vice president and president of Qualcomm Technology Licensing, said, “Since its beginning, Qualcomm’s strength has been constant innovation. Qualcomm Design in India Challenge provides a platform for cutting-edge technology entrepreneurs to showcase their talent and creative ideas. Qualcomm takes immense pleasure in announcing the two winners, who have created innovative solutions that address the needs and challenges of today. We look forward to offering our continued support to these winners, and the Government’s “Design in India” objective in helping innovative start-ups take their ideas from concept to market.”
Launched in 2016, in association with National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), QDIC encourages product companies to create innovative hardware product designs incorporating Qualcomm® technologies and platforms.In January 2017, Qualcomm announced an investment of USD 8.5 million for expansion of its design initiatives in India through the ‘Qualcomm Design in India Program’ (QDIP),which includes the QDIC as well as additional initiatives such as Qualcomm Innovation Labs at Hyderabad and Bangalore to enable Indian mobile and IoT vendors in advanced design activities requiring Camera, Audio, and RF tuning.
Upon successful completion of QDIC I in January 2017 involving incubation of ten finalists selected from over 400 aspirants, Qualcomm announced commencement of its QDIC II program. QDIC II has been implemented in two cycles, which involves incubation of a total of fourteen finalists (eight from Cycle I and six from Cycle II) selected from over 150 applications. In total, after the completion of QDIC II in early 2018, Qualcomm will have incubated 24 product companies over two years. The registrations for the second cycle of QDIC II opened in July. Qualcomm also announced the top six finalists for the second cycle of QDIC II.
· iClimb Systems India Pvt. Ltd.
· Intuvision Labs Private Limited
· Gaia Smart Cities Solutions Private Limited
· Lightmetrics Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
· Sensara Technologies India Private Limited
· Ayasta Technologies Private Limited
These six finalists will be incubated in Qualcomm Innovation Labs, and the final two winners will each receive prize money of USD $75,000 at the end of the incubation period in January 2018.
