The Telangana State Innovation Cell has opened applications for the second cohort of its ‘Government Mentor Program’ inviting startups to work with and assist the Hyderabad City Police. The Government Mentor Program is an initiative started by TSIC last year, which aims to bridge the gap between the government and startups in the state by inviting startups to work with various departments of the Telangana government to build familiarity and bring officials from relevant departments to mentor startups.
In October 2018, TSIC picked 10 startups to work with the ITE&C Department focusing on Big Data, machine learning and artificial intelligence, Media, Content and several other emerging technologies, which could potentially be useful to solve various problems for the government.
“We believe that startups work on unique and innovative solutions that have potential to improve services or processes that Government bodies provide. However, they may not have access to decision-makers within the Government system. The goal of the Government Mentor Program (GMP) is to assist entrepreneurs who are planning to have government as a customer. The program establishes relationship between the entrepreneur and the relevant government officer,” TSIC said in its registration page inviting startups.
In the second round, startups will work with Hyderabad City Police, which is seeking innovative solutions in the areas of traffic, crimes, law and order, special branch, City Armed Reserve (CAR) and City Security Wing (CSW).
Under traffic, it is seeking solutions for traffic management and road safety, while for crime, it wants innovative solutions for Crime prevention and detention, monitoring, preventing and detecting cybercrime, for women safety and security, tools for crime analysis, labelling, tagging and tracking of seized properties in police stations and for community partnership.
It is also seeking solutions for non-lethal methods of crowd control, visual profiling techniques and technology and solutions to plan and manage crowds during major events. The special branch department is seeking solutions to monitor social media and fake news.
Apart from this, the CSW is also looking for innovation around the safety and security of people in public places such as malls.
Applications for the second cohort of the Government Mentor Program are now open and will close on February 12, 2019.
Last year, the ten startups selected for the first cohort of Government Mentor Program are Karnataka based Legitdoc, Noida-based Precily, T-Hub’s Stumagz, Raasta Studios and IOT Research Labs. The other startups Lakeer, Kaarmic Education Services, Thanos (IIIT-H startup), Red matter, RHPD Software Solutions, all from Hyderabad.