Speaking at the launch of the accelerator, the minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that he hoped that the ministry’s collaboration with Meta would provide the “necessary impetus towards fueling the growth of investments in future technologies in line with the government vision”.
As a part of the tie-up, the IT ministry’s startup hub and Meta will support 40 early-stage startups working in the field of XR technologies with a grant of Rs 20 lakh each. The program will also encourage early-stage innovators working on XR technology in sectors such as education, learning and skills, healthcare, gaming, entertainment, agritech, climate action, tourism and sustainability.
“The innovators will be provided support to upscale from the R&D (research and development) phase to developing workable products and services. At first 80 innovators will be shortlisted to attend a bootcamp, out of which, a total of 16 innovators will be provided grants of Rs 20 lakhs each and further support to help them develop Minimum Viable Product (MVP)/ prototypes,” the ministry said in a statement.
The launch of the accelerator program was also attended by Joel Kaplan, the vice president of global policy at Meta, Facebook India managing director Ajit Mohan and other senior executives from the social media giant.
