Govt Launches City Innovation Exchange Platform To Foster Innovative Practices In Urban Ecosystem

The government on Thursday (25 February) launched the City Innovation Exchange (CiX) to foster innovative practices in cities.

The CiX platform was launched by Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra at an online event in Delhi.

"The platform will be a significant addition to the growing innovation ecosystem of India and focuses on fostering innovative practices in cities. CiX, through an ‘open innovation’ process, engages with innovators to design-test-deliver on solutions to pressing urban challenges," the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs said in a statement.

According to the ministry, this initiative is among the ongoing efforts of the government to realise Prime Minister’s vision of New and AtmaNirbhar Bharat, by making cities more self-reliant and enabled to meet the needs of and provide services to their citizens.

Designed on the philosophy of ‘everyone is an innovator’, the platform will bring together Citizen Organisations-Academia-Businesses-Government to co-create for the future of Urban India in a transparent and sustainable manner, the ministry said.

The City Innovation Exchange (CiX) will connect cities to innovators across the national ecosystem to design innovative solutions for their pressing challenges. The platform will ease the discovery, design and validation of solutions through a robust, transparent and user centric process that will reduce barriers for innovators and cities to discover fitting solutions.

Built on the concept of ‘open innovation’, the platform will help in the flow of ideas ‘outside in and inside out’, enhancing the skills and capacity required to deliver smart urban governance, it said.

Through interaction with the Academia and businesses/startups, the platform will benefit cities in the transfer of ideas from ‘labs’ to real environment. Similarly, by helping urban governments interact with citizens, the platform will ensure adoption of tested solutions that will be impactful and sustainable.

"The platform in due time will help our cities in adopting solutions that will enhance the quality of life for its residents and significantly improve the Ease of Doing Business," the ministry added.

The platform has more than 400 start-ups, 100 smart cities, more than 150 challenges statements and over 215 solutions at the time of launch.