Western Digital Announces the Winners of Data Innovation Bazaar 2020 to Empower Indian Startups to Drive Data-led Solutions

In its continued endeavour to enable startups to achieve more, Western Digital concluded its flagship startup challenge – Data Innovation Bazaar™ 2020. Data Innovation Bazaar 2020 was hosted in partnership with Startup India and Invest India, and Ecosystem partners – Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Department of Science & Technology – Ministry of Science & Technology (DST) and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE Delhi-NCR). The annual startup challenge delivered a platform to promote data-driven solutions for industries including healthcare, education, agriculture, energy & environment, smart transportation and smart cities.

India has the world’s third largest startup ecosystem. Today, startups are gaining more momentum and entrepreneurs are increasingly looking to collaborate with partners, get more exposure and expand their business. The corporate sector has been engaging with startups to get a fresh perspective in addition to making corporations more agile. Western Digital’s initiative – Data Innovation Bazaar has been architected in India under the leadership of Supria Dhanda, and has helped in enabling entrepreneurs showcase their data-led ideas and also build a network with key stakeholders.

Winners of Data Innovation Bazaar 2020 were announced in a virtual event led by the office of the India Country Manager and Vice President – Supria Dhanda and in the presence of Chief Guest –  Deepak Bagla, MD & CEO of Invest India, members from Western Digital’s executive leadership, the government and leading academia.

The top five startups who were awarded a total grand prize of INR 25 lakhs are –

• The first place was awarded to AarogyaAI Innovations Private Limited and earned a prize of INR 10 lakhs for their genomics and artificial intelligence-driven rapid diagnostic solution for drug-resistant tuberculosis
•  Anukai Solutions Private Limited was awarded the second-place prize of INR 6 lakhs, for their innovative traffic management solutions with the help of AI.
• Agua Wireless Systems Private Limited was awarded the third-place prize of INR 4 lakhs for their IoT-based solutions that enable smart water management by automating water distribution, billing and leakage detection in buildings, layouts and cities.
• The fourth-place prize of INR 3 lakhs was awarded to Paraclete Image Labs Private Limited for their assistive device for the visually impaired which acts as a reader as well as exam writer.
• ShilpMIS Technologies was awarded the fifth-place prize of INR 2 lakhs for their platform that simplifies Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality content creation and discovery for immersive & interactive learning.

Additionally, Aarogya AI was awarded a special women entrepreneur prize of INR 2 lakhs.

“Invest India has long been at the forefront to enable startups to achieve more, and with the help of corporate partners we are able to build a strong startup network and make them enterprise ready. Frugal innovations, which form the core of the Indian startup ecosystem, provide a plethora of solutions to combat the socio-economic issues in the country and across the globe. As one of the largest forums promoting entrepreneurship in India, our wide community of stakeholders has helped talented entrepreneurs succeed and take their innovations from labs to land.”, said Deepak Bagla, MD & CEO, Invest India.

“To define the success of a startup, one needs to build blocks of vision and strategy, leverage the ecosystem along with new-age innovation; and these are few of the traits which we saw in our finalists. Technology has played an elevated role during challenging times by transforming our lives and creating a greater positive impact on business. With data growing at an exponential rate and the rise in startup innovation, we are hoping to foster more breakthrough solutions with Data Innovation Bazaar by bringing together the entrepreneurial ecosystem, investors, corporates, academia and the government.”, said Siva Sivaram, President, Technology & Strategy, Western Digital.

“Western Digital believes in strengthening its relationship with the Indian startup ecosystem to empower the local talent. The zeal to solve the challenges India faces was seen across all the solutions. Nearly 50% of the applications were ideas for the healthcare and education sector, and about one-third of the short-listed applications are directly relevant to the areas of smart cities, smart video, connected homes and transportation. Data Innovation Bazaar has received an overwhelming response this year and we saw an 85% rise in the number of applicants. We are invested to play a role in igniting engineering minds and catalysing the startup ecosystem of India.”, said Supria Dhanda, Vice President and India Country Manager, Western Digital.

The top 40 shortlisted teams of Data Innovation Bazaar 2020 will be given TiE membership and will also be invited for a three-day innovation bootcamp offered by Western Digital. All the women-led entrepreneurs in the top 40 will get an exclusive three-month accelerator opportunity offered by WE Hub, a government of Telangana initiative. The 40 finalists will also get to participate in Khoj Incubator program offered by Atal Incubation Centre-BIMTECH with 15 of them getting an opportunity to be a part of the Incubation Program.

The 2020 edition of Data Innovation Bazaar received a total of 963 applications and saw entries across various industries. Western Digital along with its partners have curated an exclusive platform which offers an opportunity for students and budding entrepreneurs to have direct access to key stakeholders across the startup ecosystem. Data Innovation Bazaar is a platform to harness technology to inspire paradigm shift in data-driven innovation.