A joint endeavor with The/Nudge Centre for Social Innovation and the GoI

The/Nudge Centre for Social Innovation and Cisco, in association with the Government of India, has announced the ’Cisco Agri Challenge’, aimed at mobilizing agri-tech startups to innovate solutions that have the potential to positively impact at least 10 million small farmers. With a prize purse of Rs 2 crores, the challenge will run in stages over twelve months. It will support participants in developing, testing, and scaling solutions that help alleviate the issues of low income and diminishing profitability farmers in India are facing. 

Prof K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the GoI who is co-hosting the challenge, said, “The Government of India strongly believes that public investment in both traditional science and frontier technology, will empower India to leapfrog in developing sustainable solutions for biodiversity preservation, environmental sciences, climate change, and regenerative agriculture.”

Harish Krishnan, Managing Director, Public Affairs and Strategic Engagements, Cisco India and SAARC, said, “Farmers are a critical part of India’s socio-economic fabric, but they continue to face the challenge of low profitability, exacerbated by the pandemic. We are not only incubating agritech start-ups, but also bringing together a powerful ecosystem of investors, domain experts, and government stakeholders to galvanize action and bring to market scalable solutions that can help boost farmers’ incomes and improve their decision-making.”