Design in India! India's Copycat image in Start-up zone will only shed itself when it will be worthwhile to do A NEW

India's startup ecosystem is bubbling. It is dynamic, rearing to go and looking for just the right kind of support to tap into its full potential. Prime Minister Narendra Modi gauged this and came up with vision of "Make in India' and the vision is finally getting wings.

After meeting tech giants in September, Modi got Qualcomm on board to invest $ 150 million in Indian ventures. Moving forward, Qualcomm has announced to Design in India initiative in association with NASSCOM. The challenge aims to encourage creation of local product and hardware design ecosystem in India in the areas of smartphones, tablets, wearables, automotive and telematics and Internet of Things (IOT).

"Using smartphones has become a way of life and Qualcomm is at the heart of the mobile ecosystem. India has largest engineering talent after San Diego and Qualcomm with its Design in India challenge wants to leverage this vast pool to innovate technological breakthroughs to bridge industrial, infrastructural and societal gaps in India," said Suni Lalvani President, Qualcomm India and South Asia.

J S Deepak, Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) stressed on tapping the domestic demand especially in the electronic sector. "The initiative will energize the domestic hardware manufacturing to address both domestic and global market needs," he added.

"Today our exports are worth $18.1 billion and by 2020 we are expecting it to be $40 million," said R Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM. "There is a huge market there. Also, it is important to create technologies in India and work at a price point which is relevant here," he added.

The Idea is to encourage Indian companies and startups to innovate and suitors could get funding upto $10,000 each. They will be incubated in Qualcomm innovation lab for six months. The winning Startups could get upto $100,000 to think scale-up.