With first-ever India Startup Day, Facebook seeks to celebrate the game-changers in India’s startup ecosystem

As the third largest startup destination globally and with one of the fastest-growing base of software developers in the world, today India is on a journey to usher in rapid advances in technology and economic growth.

For the last few years, Facebook India has been playing a significant role in nurturing the startup ecosystem in the country and empowering businesses across industries through a number of programmes and initiatives.

Now the tech giant aims to celebrate India’s innate entrepreneurial spirit with the first-ever India Startup Day on October 9, 2018. On the occasion, the India Startup Day Awards will be distributed to recognise those startups that are game-changers in their field and are playing a key role in the country’s growth story through their innovations and their ethos.

“India Startup Day is our way of reaffirming our commitment to enable the developer and startup community through our tech programs and to celebrate stories of founders and leaders applying technology to solve current and future societal challenges. This will also be an opportunity to learn more about the challenges this new generation of entrepreneurs face and meet the business leaders and policymakers who are building the future,” says Satyajeet Singh, Head of Platform Partnerships - India & South Asia, Facebook.

This a great opportunity for startups to showcase their innovations to the industry, get a ticket to the big league and a platform to network with the biggest names in the industry.

Apply for the Facebook India Startup Day Awards.

The five award categories are as follows:

SheLeadsTech: The award for the SheLeadsTech category seeks to recognise the most successful companies that have a woman founder/co-founder.

Building for the World: This category seeks to recognise companies working on solutions that can be used globally and have seen traction outside India.

Building for Tomorrow: This award is for those startups working on the building blocks for a stronger tech-driven future. Any startup that is applying emerging technologies such as AR/VR to reinvent how business and society can come up with solutions to previously unsolvable problems is eligible to apply under this category.

Building for the Next Billion: In this category, the best startups that are developing and implementing solutions for social, cultural, and/or environmental issues in India will be awarded.

Community Builder: This award will recognise those startups that are building solutions to support the developer/startup community in India.

Who can apply

The contest is only open to legal residents of India and startups that are registered in India. To be eligible to apply, the startup should have been registered as a company for at least six months at the time of applying, have at least one full-time employee, and have an original product or technology that can be licensed, with a functionality currently not available in any off-the-shelf product.

The criteria for judging will include:

(1) Innovativeness: How creative, novel, and feasible is the solution that the startup is bringing to the market?

(2) Current Market Traction: What is the traction that the startup has gained with customers so far?

(3) Potential for Impact: How much market opportunity/size is the startup poised to capture through its solutions?

So hurry, don’t miss this opportunity to be recognised as a game-changer on a great platform.

Apply today for the Facebook India Startup Day Awards.