Innovation Challenge for Development of Video Conferencing | Fusion - WeRIndia

In the wake of COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown in the country, many organizations are encouraging their employees to work from home.

Most of them are using the Zoom app for video conferencing. But security experts warn about the security and privacy concerns associated with it.

In this context, the Indian government wants tech developers in the country to develop a video conferencing app to be an alternative to Zoom. The app should be safe and seamless so that users can use it freely without any threat or fear.

The government announced an innovation challenge on it. Winners will be rewarded with a prize of ₹1 crore. The total amount allocated for the challenge is ₹2.5 crore.

The Innovation Challenge for Development of Video Conferencing Solution started on April 13. Those who want to join the competition can register on the government’s website, mygov.in. The last date to apply for the challenge is April 30. The results will be announced on July 29 and winners will be given prize money of ₹1 crore.

The developers should have to note the following points while designing the app:

• The app should support all video resolutions and audio quality.
• It should work in both low and high network situations and on any device.
• It should use low power and processing power.
• It should not depend on any external hardware.
• It should be capable to host many simultaneous conferences having multiple participants in each conference.
• It should have chat options during the conference even in the multi-people conference.
• It can have both browser and app-based interface.
• It should have audio and video recording feature with screen or file-sharing capabilities.
• It should have encrypted network communication and both sign-in and non-sign-in options to join a conference.
• During the time of chat, the app should enable audio to close captioning.

All experts can participate in the challenge in teams. It has three stages: 

• The stage I is the ideation stage where the proposed ideas of their solution will be sent. Top 10 teams will be selected from this stage and will be given ₹5 lakhs to build the prototype.
• Stage II is a prototype stage where the teams build their prototypes. Top 3 teams will be selected and will be given funding of ₹20 lakhs to build the final solution.
• Stage III or final stage is the solution building stage. The winner will get prize money of ₹1 crore along with the certificate. And an additional amount of ₹10 lakhs will be given towards operations and maintenance.

If you are interested to participate in the challenge visit the website.

Image by Jagrit Parajuli from Pixabay (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/video-call-online-zoom-skype-video-5163145/