Defence ministry takes a shot at the startup game

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Defence ministry takes a shot at the startup game
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EyeROV and 11 other startups are part of a new initiative for defence innovation at the Forge incubator in Coimbatore.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was the first to use EyeROV’s drone at its Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory to conduct underwater experiments in December 2017.
Now, EyeROV’s underwater drones will help the Navy in reconnaissance and repair.
The startup was picked by the defence ministry after a country-wide call from Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX), a programme started in April 2018 to equip the armed forces with cutting-edge technology by fostering startups.
The Defence Innovation Organisation—a not-for-profit company formed by public sector undertakings—got the army, navy and air force to come up with 11 requirements to kick off iDEX.
These winners, including EyeROV, will receive ₹1.5 crore from iDEX to develop and commercialize products or technologies in close consultation with the armed forces.
He came away impressed with how the company, now the world’s largest defence contractor, built its first product 24 years ago with help from US government.
This was the premise on which we started creating the iDEX structure,” says Mudit Narain, programme director at NITI Aayog.
With experience as the founding manager of Atal Innovation Mission, Narain could speak the language of startups as well as government.
“I saw myself as a translator—I could help these universes talk to each other and achieve innovation instead of indigenization, which is mostly reverse engineering oriented towards low-cost import substitution,” he says.
India is the world’s largest defence equipment importer and the procurement process favours mature companies with ready products.
That’s why the principles of co-creation, open innovation, and an investment model are wired into the core of iDEX,” Vishwanathan Sahasranamam, co-founder and CEO of Forge, explains

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