MeitY startup hub partners with Meta to launch accelerator programme for XR tech startups in India

MeitY Startup Hub (MSH), an initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, announced its partnership with social media giant, Meta, to launch an accelerator programme to support XR technology startups in the country.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, and Meta’s vice president of global policy, Joel Kaplan, were part of the event.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, “It is an important day in terms of achieving Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji’s vision of making the next 10 years as India’s Techade - full of opportunities for young Indians. It is also an important milestone in area of Metaverse, which is an important part of emerging future of the internet. I look forward to the collaboration with Meta and I hope it provides the necessary impetus towards fueling the growth of investments in future technologies in line with the government vision for making India a trillion-dollar economy by 2025.”

Reported by Mint, the accelerator programme will support 40 early-stage startups working in building XR technologies and will receive a grant of Rs 20 lakh each. Besides that, with this programme, startups will also get mentorship on range of domains including research to development phase.

The program will focus on developing technological capabilities for the metaverse and will help shape the ecosystem of emerging technologies, including Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR) in the country.

Educational institutions, including IIT Delhi; International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad; Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Rangpo; and Gujarat University will implement the programme.