Applications Invited for Grand Challenge for COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (CoWIN)

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About the Organization:

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is an Indian government ministry charged with health policy in India. It is also responsible for all government programs relating to family planning in India. The Minister of Health and Family Welfare holds cabinet rank as a member of the Council of Ministers. The current minister is Harsh Vardhan. Since 1955 the Ministry regularly publishes the Indian Pharmacopoeia through the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), an autonomous body for setting standards for drugs, pharmaceuticals and healthcare devices and technologies in India.

Grand Challenge for Strengthening CoWIN

As the world moves closer to COVID-19 vaccine availability, governments and healthcare organizations will require developing flexible technology solutions/platforms across the entire gamut of vaccine inventory management, administration, appointment scheduling, notifications, outcome monitoring, and other necessary support for a frictionless distribution of billions of doses of vaccines around the country.

The Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system, which provides real-time information on vaccine stocks and storage temperatures across all cold chain points in the country, is being enhanced to address the needs for distribution and tracking of COVID-19 vaccine.

This CoWIN system will be a subset of COVID India Portal which provides end to end management of COVID19. Short note and technology stack of CoWIN system is appended as Annexure-I. Now governments and healthcare organizations also need to think beyond this and devise cost effective mechanisms using emerging technologies including AI and ML to manage COVID19, to check for better monitoring of vaccinated patients and public in general.

To harness the talent and innovative ideas of new startups / new technology specialists, Grand Challenge is organised in phase wise manner. On this line of thought, Phase-I of this challenge envisages to strengthen the CoWIN Network. This initiative may be further extended to Phase-II to find solutions with respect to different aspects of COVID 19 in the future.

The proposed Grand Challenge with seven (07) pre-identified problem statements tries to tackle challenges relating to infrastructure, monitoring and management information systems, constraints of human resources-including technical capacities, gaps identified in cold chain and vaccine logistics management, massive vaccination of citizen, effective monitoring mechanism for vaccinated population(for adverse effects and appropriate Covid 19 behavior).

These identified parameters will holistically address the likely limitations associated with complete and effective vaccine distribution system (VDS) and administering across the country.

Grand Challenge Implementation Mechanism

• The applications would be scrutinized initially. Based on the initial scrutiny,  top 25 applicants from each thrust area will pitch their solutions before a Jury comprising of experts in the area of IT and Health/ Immunization etc. especially constituted to adjudicate the contestants.
• The Jury would shortlist the top 05 applicants from each thrust area who will be provided the CoWIN APIs for showing the efficacy of their respective solutions for possible integration with the CoWIN platform. Each shortlisted applicant for the said activity will be rewarded with Rs. 2 Lakh each for covering their Logistical needs.
• The solutions as integrated with the CoWIN platform through open APIs will again be assessed by the Jury. Prior to this, STQC and iCERT will be entrusted to perform functional/ scalability/security testing of the solutions.
• Subsequent to the successful migration of the solution on the cloud on which the CoWIN is hosted, in addition to it being successful integration with CoWIN the Jury will select top 2 contestants from each thrust area. Top 2 contestant from initial six areas will be rewarded with Rs. 30 Lakh and 10 Lakh respectively and for 7th thrust area top 2 contestant will be rewarded with Rs. 50 lakhs and 25 lakhs.

Resultant IPR

The rights for the resultant IPR that is created or developed or otherwise resulting directly or indirectly from the winner of the challenge will rest with Ministry of Health & Family Welfare Government of India. For further leveraging the solutions, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare will at its discretion can further provision the said IP to any entity/country engaged in distribution or management of Covid-19 related vaccine delivery or handling and treatment of Covid 19 pandemic. The IPR rights for the solution provisioned by the challenge winner(s) will rest with the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare Government of India. However, the base IP on which the dedicated solution for CoWIN has been developed by the challenge winner will still rest with the original winner of the said IP and it can be used for purposes other than covid-19 related applications.

Eligibility Standards

• The Indian Tech start-ups, MSMEs, Companies, Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) registered in India under Companies Act can apply. The entity must have 51% or more shareholding with Indian citizen or person of Indian origin. The applicant’s entity should not be a subsidiary company of any foreign corporation.
• Further to  encourage  participation  from  academia  and  industry, participating  teams  not mandatorily registered as Companies/ startups/ MSMEs/ LLPs can also apply  for  the Grand Challenge for Strengthening CoWIN. However, the teams making it to the Stage-2, will be required to apply for registration as Indian Startups/ Company/ MSMEs/ LLPs. It will be expected that by the time of selection at the final stage, necessary registration has been completed.

Deadline: 15 January, 2021

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