1) What are the Atal New India Challenges?
The Atal New India Challenges initiative by Atal Innovation Mission is aimed at supporting innovators creating products based on advanced technologies in areas of national importance and social relevance through a grant based mechanism, with access to handholding, mentoring and other technical support.
2) Why is Atal Innovation Mission launching Atal New India Challenge?
India’s science and technology ecosystem is robust and effective. However, concern have been frequently raised about the ecosystem’s relatively lower ability to create products out of advanced research and deploy them in the Indian market. This program attempts to fill this gap in the ecosystem by providing grants oriented towards creating commercializable products from existing technologies, to fill needs across various economic and social sectors.
3) Who can apply for Atal New India Challenge?
-Any Indian company incorporated under the Companies Act 1956/2013, primarily a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) as defined in the MSMED Act, 2006
-Any company registered as a Start-up, as defined, and recognized by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India
The majority stake (more than 51%) of the applicant entity must be held in India
4) How do I apply for Atal New India Challenge?
All applications for Atal New India Challenge will be accepted online, and only through the dedicated form on AIM website. To know more about the Atal New India Challenge, Eligibility criteria, Guidelines, and Timelines , please visit – https://aim.gov.in/anic-overview.php
5) When is the deadline for Application?
Application deadline is 31st December 2022 for Women Centric & Post Challenges & 5th December 2022 for Agri-Millet Challenges.
6) What are the Eligibility criteria for Atal New India Challenge?
The applications for Atal New India Challenge can be submitted by innovators who should meet the following criteria:
1.The innovator is productizing/commercializing an existing patent (or published research paper) or product or technology. The innovator should be able to:
a) Submit or provide a link to the research paper published in a reputed journal before the date of announcement of this scheme.
b) Provide description, name and the registration number of the patent he holds. If the innovator /researcher is not the holder of the patent , the application should include information on the nature of the relationship with the patent holder, such as through licensing fee or profit/revenue share in the business plan, etc.
c) A video describing or showing a prototype.
2.The innovator who has identified or established partnership(s) with relevant partners for manufacturing, market deployment or early-stage pilots. As the focus of this challenge is to rapidly commercialize technologies/patents into products, it is important that innovator has either identified partners for manufacturing (which could be a MSME, or contract manufacturer, or laboratory) and early- stage pilots or established partnerships with these stakeholders. The applicant will have to provide the name and other details of the manufacturer and another potential.
7) What are the different Focus Areas for Atal New India Challenge?
Phase 2 of ANIC concentrates on 18 challenges from 5 focus areas in addition to the Open Innovation Challenge category –
– Drinking Water and Sanitation
– Renewable Energy and Clean-Tech
– Education
– Agriculture – Millet
– Post and Telegraph
– Open Innovation Challenge
8) What are the key parameters in the selection of an application for Atal New India Challenge?
The vision of the Atal New India Challenge is two-fold:
-Help create products from existing technologies relevant for national and social causes (productization).
-Help new deep-tech products find markets and early customers (commercialization).
Accordingly, applications will be screened on the following criteria:
-Potential for proposed product to meet existing Indian needs in the identified sectors.
-Potential to deploy an existing technology, prototype or patent – to be specified in the application, without revealing the details that have not been published or are not in public domain.
-Ability to reach markets in the short- to- medium term.
-Ability to establish and run a sustainable enterprise that can scale up and deploy the solution far and wide.
9) What are the Evaluation criteria for applications for Atal New India Challenge?
The key parameters in the selection of an application for Atal New India Challenge are:
-Identification of market for the product, and its estimated size. The applicant should have identified the first market (early adopter) they would be launching their product into. This choice of beachhead market may evolve over the course of prototyping with detailed primary and secondary market research.
-Clear articulation of strong business model/outcomes and plan to deploy technologies. This is to measure the impact of the product (could be either financial or social or both). The applicant should have a sound revenue model, social outcome/financial sustainability plan, and a plan to deploy product at scale.
-Identification of appropriate market channels/partners. The innovator should have a broad level understanding of channels to launch/sell product and hence should have identified potential partners. We encourage applicants to do proper due diligence about the feasibility of product launch through different market channels.
10) What is the selection process for Atal New India Challenges?
All the shortlisted candidates will present their technologies and business plans to a committee of sectoral and financial experts. Applicants or applicant teams will be selected by the committee on their ability to develop potential technologies, create products, and take them to market.
11) What are the milestones?
Milestones are the parameters to evaluate the progress of the selected applicants through the stages from prototype to commercialization. The committee will provide every applicant with milestones depending on the sector and nature of proposal. Applicants can also suggest milestones for their respective proposals while filling the application form, but those will not be binding on the committee.
12) How can ANIC help me to make my product successful?
Applicants showing capability, intent, and promise to be able to productize technologies will be awarded grants upto ₹1 crore. This grant support will be supplemented by mentoring, handholding incubation and other support as needed, at various stages of progress, to bring products to market and wider deployment.
13) How will the grant be awarded?
The grant will be awarded in a maximum of three (3) tranches within 12 – 18 months, with the following breakdown
-First tranche: Upto 30% of the amount recommended by committee.
-Second tranche: Upto 40% of the amount, contingent on achieving milestones as recommended by committee.
-Third and final tranche (if required): The remaining amount of the recommended grant, contingent on achieving milestones as recommended by the committee
14) What are the eligible expenditures for grant money under Atal New India Challenge?
Since the focus of the program is to bring products to market, applicants will be encouraged to spend on:
1.Prototyping
2.Market Assessment
3.Pilot Implementation
4.Early Consumer Partnerships
5.Targeted Marketing and Customer Engagement
15) Can I apply, if I have received other government grants?
No, as a criterion for application a Self-certification is required stating that the applicant has not received any grant, past or ongoing, from any ministry or department of the Government of India or any state government, for the same or a similar purpose.
16) What is Open Innovation Challenge under ANIC ?
For the first time since its inception, ANIC is launching an Open Innovation Challenge category wherein ANIC is open to receive sector agnostic innovations/solutions that solves the sectoral challenges in areas of national importance and social relevance.
Building on Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s management mantra for Aatmanirbhar Bharat, ‘Innovation, Integrity & Inclusion’, ANIC Open Innovation Challenge will facilitate innovation development & commercialization in areas of national importance and social relevance.
Open innovation helps in the purposive flows of knowledge and ideas from ‘outside-in and inside-out’ effectively closing the innovation capacity gap in the country and enriching the design and delivery of products and services. Open Innovation has been an underlying principle in the creation of the some of the most successful and user-friendly inventions in contemporary times. ANIC Open Innovation Challenge will enable multiple stakeholders including Administrators (Cities), Citizens, Innovators (researchers, startups, and MSMEs), and Ecosystem Enablers (Startup India, incubators, academia, associations) to effectively collaborate and co-create innovative solutions.
Open Innovation Challenge includes innovations in sectors but not limited to Fin-Tech , Autonomous Cars , Cryptocurrency & Blockchain , Sports Tech , Food Tech , Deep Tech , Deep Science, Mobility Tech & Micro Mobility , Textiles , Artificial Intelligence,Machine learning , Big Data , Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) etc.
For any further queries,kindly email us at: anic-aim@gov.in