Homegrown video app ‘Chingari’ that is a competitor to the banned Chinese app TikTok, has emerged as the winner of ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge’, in the social category.

The second winner in the category was YourQuote, India's largest writing app, and news app Koo was the third winner. While the first prize winner will get an amount of ₹20 lakh, the second and third winners will get ₹15 lakh and ₹10 lakh respectively.

On winning the first prize in its category, Sumit Ghosh, co-founder and CEO of Chingari App, said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave us the clarion call of AtmaNirbhar Bharat and the Chingari team works on this very line. We have been voted as the best app in the social media category precisely because the features we provide are tailored for the needs of the young Bharat. We will continue to serve the interests of the Indian consumers through our platform."

In total, the Jury identified 24 apps to be rewarded with prizes across all categories and another 20 apps were also identified for 'Special Mention' which have a great potential in being apps for the future.

The first of its kind, App Innovation challenge sought entries for nine different categories namely Business, eLearning, Entertainment, Games, Health, News, Office and Work from Home, Others and Social. Atal Innovation Mission, Niti Aayog actively collaborated and supported MyGov in conduct of the Challenge along with MeitY Startup Hub and National e Governance Division, under Digital India Corporation of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Other winners

Some of the top winners in each category were -- CaptionPlus (Entertainment); Logically - Check Fake News and Verify Facts (News); Hitwicket Superstars - 3D Cricket Strategy Game (Games); Zoho Workplace & Cliq (Office); StepSetGo (SSG) - Step Earn Redeem (Health); Disprz (elearning); Zoho Invoice, Books & Expense (Business); and MapmyIndia Move: Maps, Navigation & Tracking (Others).

Jury also made a mention that there are many other apps who are at various stages of development and they will also compete with the award winning apps in the near future, a government statement said.

Accordingly, it was suggested to have a policy to have such challenges on a regular basis to constantly update the Leader boards as also to provide institutional support through mentoring and tying up with Incubation centers of Atal Innovation Mission as also other government institutions to kick-start the App Building Ecosystem in India, it said.

Creating world-class apps

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge’, on July 4, and had said there is immense enthusiasm among the tech and start-up community to create world-class 'Made in India' apps. And, to facilitate their ideas and products the Centre was launching the Challenge.

On Friday (August 7) all the apps shortlisted under AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge were presented through a Webcast that was broadcasted live and at the end of the Webcast, the results of the App Innovation challenge was announced.

The App Challenge was launched on the MyGov platform, the citizen engagement platform of the government, and received as many as 6,940 entries from tech entrepreneurs and start-ups across the country. The last date for the receipt of entries was July 26.

Over a period of five days (July 31st to August 4th), extensive presentations were made by the Jury members who assessed the Apps on the parameters of robustness, scalability, security and ease of use.

Interesting and innovative apps were received in all categories and the jury, after the presentations, identified 24 apps to be rewarded.

India is one of the largest app publishers in the world, and the developer community in India have the potential of making Apps that can be the best in the world, the government noted.

And, it was interesting to note that many of the apps developers were women and represented almost the entire country. This challenge has proved that India has the talent base to build Apps for the future, it added.

Table: List of winners of the of ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge’ (Source: Government)

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