Government launches competition among start-ups to seek solutions for vaccine distribution systems

Government has launched competition among Indian tech start-ups seeking solutions for strengthening the vaccine distribution systems for COVID-19.

Government has launched competition among Indian tech start-ups to seek solutions to improve the vaccine distribution process for COVID-19. Currently, the government is in the midst of preparing for the first round of COVID-19 vaccines. Subsequently, it shall offer start-ups a chance to create new methods and strengthen the country’s vaccination drive.

The Union Ministries of health and information technology recently launched the COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system. So, they are searching for solutions as part of the huge challenge to boost the network. According to Ajay Garg, the senior director information technology ministry, Co-Win is a digitalised platform. It shall be used to roll-out vaccines and scale-up the process of vaccine distribution across the country. Subsequently, the government launched this competition among start-ups to boost this platform in the country.

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The health ministry recently pointed seven aspects of technology development that may cause hurdles in the vaccine distribution process. Furthermore, they shall also prevent its smooth functioning. The challenges of the ministry broadly address the priority areas of the vaccine distribution. These areas include infrastructure, monitoring and management, limitation of human resources, vaccines logistic management, etc.

Central government launched the challenge on December 22, 2020 on an interactive platform creating for initiating relations in the Indian tech start-up field. Additionally, the government encouraged participation from start-ups and upcoming technology experts for boosting the Co-WIN platform. Registrations for the same shall end on January 15, 2021.

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Officials shall provide the top five applicants with the Co-WIN Application Programming Interface to prove the efficiency of their solutions. This shall be done to combine the solutions with the platform for the distribution process. Each shortlisted candidate shall receive Rs.2 lakh to cover their logistic requisites. Following this, the final two winners of the challenge shall receive Rs.40 lakh and Rs. 20 lakh respectively.