By expanding the reach of iDEX to connect with more young ignited minds, he exhorted startups and innovators to come up with new ideas to modernise the Armed Forces through research and innovation & make India ‘Aatmanirbhar’

Many startups and innovators are venturing into the defence sector as the government has created a robust ecosystem for them and the nation’s growth, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday at an event organised by Innovations for Defence Excellence-Defence Innovation Organisation (iDEX-DIO) in Gandhinagar.

Singh exhorted startups and innovators to come up with new ideas to modernise the Armed Forces through research and innovation and contribute to making the nation strong, prosperous and ‘atmanirbhar.’

iDEX is a platform to provide economic support to entrepreneurs to develop state-of-the-art technologies and has empowered our young entrepreneurs.

He said that more than Rs 300 crore have been approved for over 100 iDEX winners to develop products and technologies in more than 50 technological areas.

Further, he said that iDEX creates direct and indirect employment opportunities and is useful for both job seekers and job creators and highlighted that since the inception of iDEX, over 6,000 applications have been received in the last seven editions of Defence India Start-up Challenge and Open Challenge.

On the growth of iDEX, the minister said that the platform now has a presence in Tier-II and Tier-III cities and is connecting with incubators across India. He called for focusing on the twin principles of dispersing more and gathering more to further expand the reach of the initiative to different parts of the country.

At the occasion, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar, Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral R Hari Kumar, Chief of the Army Staff General Manoj Pande and other senior officials from the central & state government as well as industry representatives were present.