The Qualcomm Design in India Challenge (QDIC) is among the many initiatives launched by Qualcomm India to foster innovation. Launched in 2016, the challenge encourages design houses and product companies to invent useful and innovative hardware product designs by incorporating Qualcomm SoCs platforms and technologies.
Over the years, the challenge has incubated over 77+ startups that have filed over 230 patents collectively, launched 25+ products commercially, and raised over $165 million in capital through various stages of funding. Six startups have made successful exits via M&A. Startups have built smart and connected devices and products in the domains like smart infrastructure, AgriTech, Industrial automation, Wearables, Medical technology, and Rural IoT. This year marks the seventh edition of the initiative where the challenge invited applications focused on 5G use cases, health tech, and mobile edge-compute as well.
The challenge QDIC received 145 applications through outreach partnerships with NASSCOM CoE-IoT and Startup India, and 12 startups were selected for the cohort through a jury selection process.
The 12 startups selected at QDIC 2022 are:
1. React Labs – Founded by IIT Bombay alumni and ex-Chief of Staff at Ather Energy Mahek Mody and ex-head of engineering at Chaayos Mohit Sharma, React Labs is India’s first D2C smart home appliance brand, with their maiden product R1, which has been designed to transform the modern Indian households.
2. TechEagle Innovations – TechEagle Innovations aims at creating safe, secure, and reliable on-demand drone logistics airlines for medical, parcel, and essential items. Founded by Vikram Singh Meena and Anshu Abhishek in 2015, the drone logistics startup has made last-mile goods (healthcare products, food, parcels, etc.) delivery possible via drones.
3. Niral Networks – Founded by Abhijit Chaudhary and Dr Inder Gopal, Niral Networks aims to democratise 5G and Edge networking infrastructure by providing 5G infrastructure as a service for last-mile connectivity in enterprise, defense, rural, agriculture, mining, etc using open and disaggregated Network Operating System called NiralOS integrated with COTS hardware.
4. Coratia Technologies – Revolutionising underwater inspection, Coratia Technologies develops and provides customised solutions (such as products, integrated solution packages and consultancy services) in the field of AUVs and ROVs operations. NIT Rourkela alumnus and classmates Debendra Pradhan and Biswajit Swain formed this innovation with an aim to reduce the costs linked to underwater operations and inspection.
5. Fleetrf – Fleetrf deals in aviation and aerospace component manufacturing. The brainchild of Sunil Aggarwal and Dr Nitin Kumar, it enables efficient and advanced operational profiles for unmanned aircraft via systems that decrease operator workload, use co-operative multi-node networks, and offer wider environmental range.
6. Ayur.AI – Realising evidence-based Ayurveda for personalised health, wellness and P5 Medicine, Chennai-based Ayur.AI integrates Ayurveda with AI for the next-generation health and wellness, and has been conceptualised by Dr Bala Pesala, Dr Prathiban Rengarajan, and Dr Surendra Gupta.
7. Sparcolife Digital Healthcare Technologies – Formed by Pooja HS and Gopinath V, Sparcolife is an applied behavioural sciences company working on multimodal diagnostics and multisensory digital therapeutics to enable the adoption of integrated behavioural care. The platform blends care for medical conditions and related behavioural-mental health factors that affect the patient’s overall health and well-being.
8. TeraLumen Solutions – A startup founded by Dr Jyotirmayee Dash and Dr Shaumik Ray, TeraLumen Solutions aims to develop novel medical devices using Multispectral Technology (Terahertz and mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy techniques) for breast cancer margin detection.
9. Aerobiosys Innovations – Co-founded in 2019 by Rajesh Yadav and Cyril Anthony, Aerobiosys Innovations aims to develop affordable life-saving medical equipment with advanced technologies for hospitals, medical institutions, and individual practitioners.
10. Brainalive – Abbas Mehdi and Gaurav Dubey’s Brainalive aims to improve user engagement in online learning/webinars/meeting through detecting, reasoning and determining the causality of user engagement using data-driven innovative tech.
11. EyeROV Technologies – Founded by IIT Alumnus Johns T Mathai and Kannappa Palaniappan P, EyeROV Technologies envisions to become a technology leader and solution provider in underwater critical infrastructure inspections and surveys,.
12. Newndra Innovations – Newndra Innovations is known for offering efficient, lightweight, and carbon-negative exoskeletons at revolutionary prices to increase the well-being of the elderly and the productivity of workers while reducing fatigue and musculoskeletal disorders.
The selected startups will get access to a plethora of benefits, including dedicated engineering support to develop their prototypes, access to a state of the art innovation lab in Bangalore, in-depth mentoring workshops, events participation opportunities, an incubation grant of Rs 3.2 lakh, patent filing incentive of up to Rs 3.2 lakh, access to an Innovation Commercialization Fund (ICF) of Rs 60 lakh, and opportunity to win Rs 1.5 crore in prize money.
