Qualcomm to invest $8.5M in design initiatives in India

Mobile technology company, Qualcomm will be investing US$8.5 million for expansion of its design initiatives in India. Under the Qualcomm “Design in India Challenge II” initiative, the company will support companies in areas of rural technology, biometric devices, payment terminals, agri technology, medical technology and smart infrastructure. It will also provide advanced camera, audio, and RF design to mobile and IoT vendors in India with the launch of a new Innovation Lab at Hyderabad and expansion of the current Innovation Lab in Bangalore.

“Qualcomm is passionate about innovation, every year we invest billions in risky R&D to invent technologies that bring advancements in various aspect of our lives,” said John Han, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Qualcomm Technology Licensing.

The company has also announced the top three winners of the first edition of the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge, launched in December 2015, in association with technology industry body NASSCOM. The winners — Carnot Technologies, IFuture Robotics and Uncanny Vision — were awarded with $100,000 each.

“Qualcomm Design in India Challenge is one of the most successful initiatives by Qualcomm to nurture some of the talented startups in India. After seeing the overpowering response during the 2016 edition, we decided to go ahead with a second year, as well as expanding the number of participants Qualcomm nurtures through this program from 10 to 16 participants in 2017,” said Jim Cathey, Senior Vice President and President, Asia Pacific and India, Qualcomm Technologies.

According to the company, over the last 12 months, ten shortlisted companies were incubated with initial prize money of $10,000 each and engineering support at India’s Innovation Lab in Bangalore where they could transform their ideas into prototypes. In the final round, the companies were judged by the jury members consisting of industry, government and the organization’s executives.