In news–With an aim of taking start-ups and Innovators in the defence ecosystem to a notch higher, Defence Minister launched Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) Prime and sixth Defence India Start-up Challenge (DISC 6) during DefConnect 2.0 in New Delhi recently.
About DefConnect-
- The DefConnect provides a unique opportunity for innovators associated with iDEX-DIO to showcase their capabilities, products and state-of-the-art-technologies to the target audience of the industry leaders.
- This leads to an opportunity to generate investments and future operations for the associated start-ups.
- Further, the platform will provide iDEX start-ups display their innovative technologies being developed indigenously.
About Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX)-
- The iDEX, launched by the Prime Minister of India in 2018, essentially provides a unified platform for various stakeholders in the defence and aerospace sectors.
- Instituted under the overarching mission of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the iDEX scheme has been achieving self-reliance and indigenisation in the defence ecosystem.
- It acts like an umbrella organisation to oversee technology development and potential collaborations in this specific field.
- It works with the objective of fostering innovation and incorporating cutting-edge and disruptive technologies in the Indian Armed Forces in a quick time frame.
- It enables the military to find disruptive solutions to complex challenges through its flagship programmes like Defence India Startup Challenges (DISC) and Open Challenges (OC) which shall be the key components for the future of military technology.
- Till date, iDEX has launched five rounds of DISC and three rounds of OC.
- The iDEX-Prime aims to support projects, requiring support beyond Rs 1.5 crore up to Rs 10 crore, to help ever-growing start-ups in the defence sector.
Source: PIB
