MeitY announces innovation challenge to accelerate adoption of FOSS in government

Owing to the large number of 4G data subscribers in India, the country is well positioned to become a vibrant hub for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) innovations. Some of India’s largest-government projects (including Aadhaar) and many technology start-ups have also been built using FOSS.

To increase awareness about its usage in governance and Government functioning, a virtual roundtable discussion “Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in Government” was organized by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) in collaboration with Omidyar Network India on April 22, 2021.

Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, appraised the steps taken by MeitY like Policy for Open Source Software in 2015 to Open Source Collaborative development of Aarogya Setu. “I am delighted to see the interest in further advancing the adoption of FOSS in Government among a wide range of government leaders, academia and FOSS innovators. MeitY will continue to play a key role in this journey. We are also pleased to announce the #FOSS4GOV Innovation Challenge, which will harness the innovation potential of the FOSS community and start-ups to solve for critical issues in GovTech.”

Varde Pande, Partner, Omidyar Network India, said they see FOSS as a key component of GovTech 3.0, which is about building secure and inclusive Open Digital Ecosystems that harness the potential of social innovators to help solve India’s toughest problems. “We are excited to see MeitY advancing the adoption of FOSS in government in a thoughtful and strategic manner and are delighted to partner with them on this journey.”

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The #FOSS4GOV Innovation Challenge calls upon FOSS innovators, technology entrepreneurs and Indian start-ups to submit implementable open source product innovations in CRM and ERP with possible applications for Govtech in Health, Education, Agriculture, and Urban Governance etc.