Govt announces winners of its App Innovation Challenge

New Delhi: Indian Short video platform Chingari, news app Logically-Check Fake News and Verify Facts and 22 more apps emerged as winners of the government’s Aatma Nirbhar App Innovation challenge, electronics and information technology ministry said on Friday.

Koo, MaymyIndiamove, Asksarkar, myitreturn are some of the other apps that won the challenge, across eight categories—news, social, games, entertainment, e-learning, among others.

The app challenge was launched days after the government banned 59 Chinese apps citing national security and privacy concerns. On July 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the challenge to promote existing Indian apps as well as the development of new apps.

The government had said it will identify the ‘best Indian apps’ that citizens are already using and have the potential to scale up and become world class apps in their respective categories.

The government has allocated ₹20 lakh, ₹15 lakh and ₹10 lakh for the first, second and third placed apps in each category. The government will also adopt suitable apps and ‘guide them to maturity’, listing them on government marketplace (GeM). Ease of use, robustness, security and scalability were some of the key evaluation criteria.