The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), an autonomous society under the ministry of electronics & information technology (MeitY) soft launched MedTech – A Center of Excellence in Medial Electronics & Health Informatics and also introduced an Open Challenge Program on 14th August 2020. MedTech CoE at Lucknow is being set up by STPI & MeitY in collaboration with Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI), Lucknow, Department of IT & Electronics (Govt. of UP), Association of Medical Device Industry (AiMED) & Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone (AMTZ).

The soft-launch of “MedTech CoE” & “Open Challenge Programme” is done by Ms. Jyoti Arora, Special Secretary and Financial Advisor, MeitY-Govt of India, and Dr. Omkar Rai, Director General, STPI in the august presence of Shri Rishirendra Kumar, Special Secretary, Department of IT & Electronics, Govt. of UP,  Shri Jitendar Sharma,CEO-AMTZ and Co-          Chief Mentor, MedTech,  Shri R.K.Dhiman, Director- SGPGI-Lucknow, Sh. Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator-AiMED, Shri Rajneesh Agrawal, Director STPI Noida and Shri Subodh Sachan, Director, STPI HQ.

STPIMedTech is significant stride in enabling Indian healthcare to empower their patients. The core objective of the CoE is to catalyse the transformation of the Life sciences & Healthcare industry for accelerated and sustained growth, to capture new business opportunities and markets and building solutions for real world challenges through co-creation programs.

With an estimated budget of Rs 22 crores (22 million), the CoE will nurture 50 startups over a period of five years, stimulating R&D in medical electronics and health informatics while facilitating an entrepreneurial ecosystem to promote young innovators to create affordable, high-quality indigenous medical products, drive employment and contribute to the economy.

The CoE will come up on the PGI campus, with a built-up space of 18,000 sq. ft. Padamshree Dr Saurabh Srivastava, Former Chairman of NASSCOM, Founder, Indian Angel Network will be the Chief Mentor of MedTech CoE.

“This CoE will promote research & innovation and help create innovative products in medical electronics domain. This CoE will make a lot of difference on the ground and meet the expectations of India to at large in the Medical sector. The initiatives taken by STPI will help nurturing start-ups, promoting innovations & entrepreneurship, eventually making India self-reliant ,” envisioned Dr. Omkar Rai, DG, STPI said while delivering keynote address on the launch of MedTech CoE.

“STPI is playing a key role in establishing CoEs in various emerging technology domains. Startups should come out with prototypes of their products to test & validate, and this CoE will help supporting & scaling,” expressed Ms. Jyoti Arora, Special Secretary & Financial Advisor, MeitY, GoI.

“High imports in Medical sector are the reason why it became necessary to create a system for self-reliance,” Shri Rajneesh Agrawal, Director, STPI-Noida, while delivering the welcome address at the soft launch of STPIMedTech.

“There are massive opportunities for healthcare sector in tele consultation, AI-based diagnostics and remote healthcare management. India has shown its capability of rapid product development during the #COVID19 pandemic and it has strong hold in IT domain, we can build sophisticated software products in healthcare domain,” stated Shri  Rajiv Nath, Forum Co-ordinator, AiMED.

“We need to be very agile in developing products & launching in market & this CoE will play a key role in this segment. This Medtech incubator will play a great role in allowing people to do business of science in a very ethical manner,” articulated Dr. Jitendar Sharma, CEO, AP MedTech Zone & Co-Chief Mentor of STPI MedTech at the soft launch.

“This initiative will contribute to the vision of the govt & policies like Make in India, startup India & leverage medical & clinical access & research. CoEs like STPIMedTech will be very helpful in developing innovative products for the healthcare sector in the country,” explained Dr. R. K. Dhiman, Director, SGPGI.

“Uttar Pradesh government is promoting medical electronics in a big way & we are launching a new policy very soon,” articulated Shri Rishirendra Kumar, Special Secretary, IT & Electronics, Govt. of UP.

STPI MedTech also launches the Open Challenge Program  to encourage startups focused on MediElectronics, HealthInformatics, HealthTech & IoT to showcase their innovation mettle & transform ideas into ground-breaking products.