Deadline: 31 July 2018

Applications are open for NIDHI-PRAYAS Program to help young and aspiring innovators. The focus is to provide support/funding from idea to prototype.

National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI) is an umbrella programme conceived and developed by the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, for nurturing ideas and innovations (knowledge-based and technology-driven) into successful start-ups.

Under this initiative, DST has launched NIDHI- Promoting and Accelerating Young and ASpiring innovators & startups (NIDHI-PRAYAS) program. The program caters to idea-stage entrepreneurs with a physical product offering, who require support for prototyping. It would also facilitate the innovators with the Physical infrastructure, Technical Guidance, Business Mentorship etc.

Objectives

• Enable translation of an innovative idea to a prototype.
• Provide a platform for faster experimentation and modify approaches in the idea to market journey.
• Generate innovative solutions relevant to the local and global problems.
• Attract a large number of youth who demonstrates problem solving zeal and abilities
• A pre-incubation program or pipeline activity leading to startup incubation. Ideal end point is venture creation and development.

Priorities Area

• The priority areas for supporting innovations under NIDHI PRAYAS program are manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, clean-tech, energy, water and Internet of Things (IOT) and other technology areas.

Funding Information

• The maximum support can be provided per innovator/incubatee is upto Rs. 10 lakhs.

Eligibility Criteria

1. The eligibility criteria for the grantees are as follows
   • Individual innovator: Applicants are required to be Indian Citizen at least 18 years of age on 1st of August, 2016. An Indian citizen is defined as one who is in possession of a government approved proof of nationality such as a valid passport, voter’s id etc.
   • Existing incubatee of a PRAYAS centre:-
     • The company is less than 2 years and wants to develop the prototype for a new product, for which they may have not received similar kind of support.
     • Company should have no significant revenue at the time of application.
   • Team of individual innovator: If the team wants to pursue the project, then there has to be an agreement among the team about the lead applicant and the lead applicant have to apply for NIDHI-PRAYAS. The financial support (after the selection process) will be given to the lead applicant on behalf of the team.
2. Not eligible for PRAYAS:
   • Student applicants pursuing long term research projects like doctoral research projects or similar projects will not be supported
   • Professors or Academicians engaged in teaching with any academic or R&D institute.
3. The project should involve physical product development. The projects relating to software development and those involving pure academic research are not eligible.
4. Preference may be given to those innovators
   • Who have bootstrapped or have got co-investment commitment.
   • Who have clear road map for commercialization or start up creation.
   • Women innovators
   • Young innovators
5. If the innovator is pursuing to build a prototype from their institute/organization IP, then in that case innovator will take NOC from the appropriate authority of their institute/organisation for use/IP transfer / ownership in favour of the innovator/startup.
6. If the applicant is studying /working in an institute/organization, they should get a no objection certificate from that respective institute/organization for applying to NIDHI PRAYAS.
7. The NIDHI-PRAYAS grantee should be registered for the pre-incubation or incubation program at the TBI for the entire duration of the program, after going through the TBI’s selection process.
8. NIDHI-PRAYAS grantee should be fully committed to work towards the prototype development for which the support is being sought and should not treat this as a stop gap arrangement to support any other pursuits.
9. The innovator can avail the NIDHI-PRAYAS support only once and they should not have sought the similar support previously, from other Government of India organisation/Institution for the same innovative concept as proposed in the application form.

How to Apply

Applications must be submitted via email at the address given on the website.

Eligible Country: India

For more information, please visit NIDHI-PRAYAS Program.