NEW DELHI (Metro Rail News): Indian Railways has embarked upon an Innovation journey through the launch of the “Startups for Railways” initiative on 13th June 2022. So far, 768 entities are registered on the Indian Railway innovation portal to participate in innovation challenges floated by Railways.
Till now, 13 innovation challenges have been uploaded, against which good responses in the form of 311 offers have been received. All the offers are being evaluated through a two-stage process, and one innovation challenge has already been finalized.
A total of 311 offers have been received against 13 problem statements uploaded on the Innovation portal. Break up of participants is as under:
Startups- 123
Individual Innovators- 60
MSMEs- 81
R&D organizations/Institutes- 18
Stage-1 evaluation has been completed for 09 Challenges. Stage-2 presentations have been held for 07 Challenges. Stage-2 evaluation for “Design of superior Elastomeric Pad (EM Pad) for Heavy Haul freight Wagon” concluded on 20th October 22. Accordingly, LOA shall be issued after sanctioning the theRailway’ssr portion of the grant.
01 more problem statement on developing a Phased Array Rail/Weld Tester or any other improved technology for detecting Rail/Weld flaws has been uploaded.
As part of this initiative, the Indian Railways Innovation Portal has also gone live at https://innovation.indianrailways.gov.in/.
To spread awareness, a total of 131workshops/meetings on the Indian Railway Innovation Policy have been organized by Zonal Railways/PUs/RB, in which approximately 1560 Startups/Innovators participated. In addition, more than ten site visits, VC with NSRCEL of IIM Bangalore & meetings with Dipanjan Bag, Principal-Startup, and CII were organized.
In continuation of this process of inspiring Indian railways Officers, Shri Vinod Dham, eminent engineer, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, also known as the ‘Father of the Pentium Chip’ for his contribution to the development of the Pentium microprocessor, delivered a talk in rail Bhawan today. He appreciated the initiatives and efforts made by the Ministry of Railways under the Indian’Railway Innovation Policy and the launch of “Startup” for Railways“. Shri “ham said that technology had become the most significant enabler and power tool in the world and India is becoming more technology-driven in every part of life. By giving examples of various countries in technology innovation which made them power giants in their respective fields, he underlined the crucial role of government initiative in technology innovation. Addressing the senior officials of the Ministry of railways, many of whom joined through VC from across the country, he underlined the passion and problem-solving mindset as a success mantra.
Shri Vinod Dham said that India is among the top 3 Startup countries and has the potential to lead the world. The Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has created a more favourable environment for the Startups as well, he added.
