Airtel Launches Startup Innovation Challenge

NEW DELHI:
Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s premier communications solutions provider, today announced the launch of ‘Airtel India Startup Innovation Challenge’ in partnership with Invest India.

As part of the ‘Startup Innovation Challenge’ early stage technologycompanies are invited to demonstrate differentiated solutions in the following areas –
• 5G – Innovative B2C or B2B use cases and applications that can leverage high speed and low latency 5G technology.
• IoT – Creating innovative IoT solutions that can power the digital transformation journey of enterprises.
• Cloud Communication – Leveraging AI and ML technologies to create B2C or B2B products that can improve customer engagement and experience.
• Digital Advertising – Creating innovative and unique ad formats – both digital and otherwise that would make ads or brand promotions an enriching experience for the end customer.
• Digital Entertainment – Creating a platform or offering disruptive solutions in music, video or gaming that can support the growth of India’s content creator economy.

Applications will close on 24th January 2022 and the results will be announced on 14th February 2022.

The top 10 winners will win cash prizes, get access to Airtel’s Innovation Lab and will be able to leverage Airtel’s advanced technology infrastructure to scale up their use cases and even co-innovate with Airtel’s engineering teams. A select few of the 10 startups shall be offered to be on-boarded onto the Airtel Startup Accelerator Program and hyper-scale their company with Airtel. Under thisProgram, startups gain access to Airtel’s core platform strengths of data, distribution, network and payments. Further, startups get access toAirtel’s global partner ecosystem and advisory from Airtel’s executive team.

Commenting on the occasion, Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel, said: “India’s startup ecosystem is now a globally celebrated story and our young technology companies are doing some phenomenal work in building solutions that solve hard problems. As a core enabler of this emerging digital ecosystem, Airtel is thrilled to be working with the Government of India to help early stage companies navigate their growth journeys and scale up quickly and sustainably. On behalf of Airtel, I invite companies to be a part of this challenge and benefit from Airtel’s deep technological capabilities.”

Deepak Bagla, MD & CEO, Invest India, said: “We look forward to enable India’s young technology startups through the Startup Innovation Challenge in partnership with Bharti Airtel. The Indian startup ecosystem is the third largest in the world, and we are delighted that through this challenge, growing startups will be able to showcase Made-in-India solutions that solve complex global problems. On behalf of Invest India, I invite early-stage companies to participate in this challenge”.