Paytm launches incubator initiative ‘Build For India’ to promote open-source projects

Paytm, India’s digital payments unicorn, announced its plans to launch its incubator programme enabling startups to build and share tech solutions in the country. Through the ‘Build For India’ initiative, Paytm will bring together students and professionals who can build open source solutions and share them with the developer community worldwide.

The Build For India programme will focus on solutions for education, digital lifestyle, financial inclusion and other new-age technologies including machine learning AR and VR. The incubator initiative is aimed at developers who could use technology and design to create world class solutions. Paytm’s premises will be utilized to facilitate hackathons, bootcamps, mentoring sessions, and technology and design support for students.

Commenting on the development, Paytm Senior Vice President Deepak Abbot said, “In our country, we use a lot of open source projects but do not contribute back enough to the developer community. We aim at correcting this by promoting new open source projects developed from India. We will also create communities around these projects to maintain them. With the Open Source Project Incubator, Paytm aims to give back to the developer community.”

Paytm is looking to kickstart the Build For India initiative with around 20 institutions and is currently in talks with student bodies and faculties including the IITs, NSIT (Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology), Delhi Technological University, Amity University and BIT Mesra among others. However, they are also looking to increase the tie-ups going forward.

As of now, the incubator has not promised  any immediate monetary support but has promised that solutions and developers will be ‘recognised’ by Paytm and some may be offered scholarships and potential recruitment opportunities.