Founded by industry veterans and Co-Founders of HCL, Dr Ajai Chowdhry and Arjun Malhotra, EPIC Foundation, a non-profit organization, unveiled its vision to transform India into an Electronic Hardware Product Nation.
Under the vision, the foundation laid forth two products, with one being an LED Driver chip and a Tablet. The former is developed by a startup in Bangalore and is ready to go for production replacing the Chinese chip. The latter is claimed to be the first 100 percent designed in India Tablet for education and social empowerment comprising distinct features of repairability and upgradability, developed on the principles of repair-reuse-recycle – not found in any other imported tablet.
The foundation trusts India has potential to be the next design and manufacturing destination, considering the support from highly skilled young workforces and competitive wages with the right geopolitical nudge, including the efforts to make the country a $ 400 billion electronics industry.
The foundation also agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM), and it is also in advanced talks with a number of other academic institutions with the purpose of creating distinctive ‘Designed in India’ goods for the 1.4 billion Indian consumers. Dr. Ajai Chowdhry and Shri BV Naidu, Chairman of the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission, inked the MOU with KDEM. The EPIC Foundation and the Andhra Pradesh Electronics and IT Agency (APEITA) recently signed an MOU under which the foundation would provide technical and strategic advice to APEITA in order to help the state's electronics industry grow.
Dr Ajai Chowdhry, Chairman, EPIC Foundation and Member of the MeitY task force to realise India’s potential to become a Product Nation said, “Creating a robust design & manufacturing ecosystem requires tremendous amount of support from all stakeholders. EPIC Foundation aims to be the interface between Industry and State Government with MEITY, Niti Aayog DST and DPIIT to address key challenges and recalibrate the policies. Solidifying its commitment to move the nation up the value chain to be at the forefront of design, manufacturing and production, EPIC Foundation will work towards enabling critical Global Collaboration with Key ESDM regions like Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, Japan and the USA”
Commenting on the MoU with KDEM , Chowdhry added, “KDEM is working on ESDM sector growth under the Beyond Bengaluru initiative which covers cities such as Mysore, Hubli, Belgaum, Mangalore, Shivamogga. They have start-up incubators and accelerators. We will support these startups with Technical mentoring, go-to-market strategies and help overcome operational issues and challenges.”
Shri. Amitesh Sinha, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said, “The largest part of the value chain is product designing, is a concept where the design company has full control over the entire value chain including selection of materials, vendors for component manufacturing and finally selling of the product. The concept itself is very important. The increased demand for electronic hardware products is boosting the market size. Focussed government schemes on product manufacturing are being deployed. We have the right talent pool. Time has come to make India’s own products.”
The announcements came in the presence of Shri. Amitesh Sinha, Joint Secretary Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology; Shri. BV Naidu, Chairman, Karnataka Digital Economy Mission; Mr Sanjeev Gupta, CEO, Karnataka Digital Economy Mission; Mr. Mohandas Pai, Chairman Aarin Capital and Manipal Global Education; Mr. Sharad Sharma, Co-founder iSPIRIT, Mr Amrit Manwani, CMD, Sahasra Group and other eminent guests from Industry, government, and Academia.