Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) along with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has announced the launching of ‘CoWIN’, a Grand Challenge for strengthening the COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (CoWIN) system, a digitalised platform to be used to effectively roll out and scale up the mechanism for COVID Vaccine Distribution System, nationally.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister, Electronics and Information Technology, GoI said, “I invite innovators and start ups for grand challenge to strengthen CoWIN platform for roll out of COVID-19 vaccination programme across India.”

To be launched on the MSH (MeitY Start-up Hub) portal, a collaborative platform developed under the aegis of MeitY towards building meaningful synergies in the Indian tech start-up space, the challenge invites participation from talented and innovative start-ups and emerging technology specialists to augment and scale the CoWIN platform.

The Challenge kickstarted with registration process at https://meitystartuphub.in on December 23, 2020 and is open for participants to apply till January 15, 2021. The top 5 applicants will be provided the CoWIN APIs (Application Programming Interface) to prove the efficacy of their solutions for possible integration with the platform. Each shortlisted applicant at this stage stands a chance to win Rs 2 lakh covering their logistical requirements. The solutions once integrated with the platform through open APIs will be assessed for robustness and scalability. Top 2 contestants from the challenge will be rewarded with Rs 40 lakh and 20 lakh respectively.