While India is making great strides in IT, healthcare, metal and other sectors, the country’s civic and social issues still require a host of solutions. For many startups, solving the crisis in roads, housing, water, and power remain a top priority. Luckily, civic tech startups are taking the lead in creating innovative solutions to fix the ground realities in India. These startups leverage solutions resulting from the intersection of technology, citizens and government by exploring technologies like AI/ML to bridge the gaps between services the government offers, and how these are delivered to citizens.

Smart cities offer the perfect canvas on which these civic tech startups can create and implement their solutions. Startups can provide front-end technologies to increase the quality and accessibility of public services such as water, transportation, sanitation etc. Additionally, they can also provide backend services - tools, infrastructure and hardware - to help smart cities to collect relevant information and make data-driven decisions to better the lives of citizens.

There are endless opportunities for startups to make government services smarter and smoother. For instance, placing sensors targeted towards recording waste management in housing associations, institutions, public areas, industries and office environments to create cost-efficient waste handling. Startups can also implement innovative solutions for smart roads, bridges and tunnels, smart traffic management, smart street lighting and more.

• Outcomes from the webinar for the attendees
• Key business opportunities for startups in smart city; commercially scaling smart city solutions.
• Exploring innovative products through startups and possible co-creation opportunities. This webinar comes in to open a multitude of opportunities to expand the market. This is the time for you to explore your innovative ideas, present new technologies, or propose new business models to stakeholders envisioning to revolutionise the Smart City space.
• This webinar will look at these kinds of spaces for public sector startups - or more accurately civic tech startups - to invest and scale in. The panel of experts will discuss the challenges and opportunities for startups to partner with corporates and other important stakeholders to build the cities of the future - followed by Q&A.

Potential Speakers

Rahul Kapoor

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Deepti Dutt

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About AWS and Startup Ramp Program

AWS public sector is focused on supporting governments and other public sector leaders with technology-led innovation that can support their core missions, serve citizens more effectively and create positive impact at scale. As a part of this focus, AWS also works closely with startups to help them develop solutions addressing public sector challenges, and scale their solutions for broader social impact.

AWS Public Sector has launched a new initiative for Powering Startups and Public Sector Organisations – Startup Ramp. It is a virtual acceleration program for public sector focused startups building solutions on AWS platform. AWS Public Sector Startup Ramp is designed to provide public sector focused startup customers with resources they need to get started quickly and easily on AWS. The program assists entrepreneurs with building the next generation solutions for Defense, Space, National Security, Healthcare, Public Safety, Transportation, Transit, Citizen Engagement, Agriculture, and many other public sector verticals, all on the AWS Cloud. The goal of the AWS Public Sector Startup Ramp program is to engage and support these startups as they build, launch and grow their solutions

Startup business leaders, technical founders, and developers who are eager to learn how to get started on building and scaling for Smart Cities in India and how AWS Startup Ramp program can support.

Webinar agenda

About CIX : Making innovation work for Urban India

The Smart Cities Mission with the launch of the City Innovation eXchange (CIX) platform intends to take innovation to the cities and help institutionalise the process of deploying innovative and low-cost solutions to localised challenges. CIX has been built on the principles of ‘open innovation’ i.e. to bring ‘outside-in’ knowledge to pressing problems and engage to the possible extent citizens and urban stakeholders in the choice of solutions for public goods and services delivery. The City Innovation Exchange platform, a digital marketplace to connect all 100 smart cities to the innovator ecosystem inculcates processes that will:

• Aid in discovery of custom-fit solutions
• Enables building pipeline for commercial procurement by validating solutions through pilots
• Reduces market barriers for innovators and fosters ease of doing business with ULBs
• Information repository on solutions piloted for P2P learning
• Solves the L1 dilemma for startups
• Institutionalized safeguards through dedicated procurement advisory supporting startups.
• Startups get access to incubation and acceleration facilities (*at the discretion of the city)

The platform adopts the approach of hosting challenges raised by smart cities or sector-specific challenges proposed by stakeholders other than cities. The platform, as on date, hosts all 100 smart cities, 500+ startups and 170+ solutions. CIX institutional linkages with Startup India, Atal Innovation Mission and expanding partnership with other innovation-focussed public and private stakeholders helps increase the power of network effects to end-users. The clarion call by Government of India for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and that Startups to aid as a key driver in this journey (as detailed in the ‘Startup India Way Ahead’ agenda released by Hon’ble Prime Minister), will help induce cities to take up solutions from startups.