Bengaluru: K'taka Dy CM launches products to mitigate COVID-19

Bengaluru Deputy Chief Minister, Dr C N Ashwathnarayan, who is also the Minister of IT, BT and Science and Technology, on Thursday launched eight products aimed at mitigating COVID-19, through a virtual platform.

These products have been developed by various start-ups at Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre (BBC), an initiative of Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society (KITS), Department of Electronics, IT, BT and S&T, Government of Karnataka.

Congratulating the start-ups, the Deputy Chief Minister said, "These technologies and products add to the list of earlier products launched and developed by the start-ups at BBC. This shows that Karnataka has emerged as a leading state in developing solutions to fight the COVID 19 pandemic, which is a result of the robust Innovation ecosystem present here."

Speaking to he said, "Today we have launched Urban PHC Portal which will be collecting the information from all the PHCs. At present we have 140 PHCs. Today we are ensuring that all the information will be collected digitally."

Dr E.V. Ramana Reddy, Additional Chief Secretary to the Department of Electronics, IT, BT and S&T, Government of Karnataka and Chairman, BBC said, "We are very proud to launch these technologies and products at the right time to fight the pandemic while more technologies and products are in the pipeline."

Prof. K. Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to Prime Minister, said the development of products at Bio-incubators such as BBC is an indication in the direction of Atma Nirbhar Bharat- a clarion call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"BBC's partnership with the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore should help these start-ups in scaling up their products, market analysis and access to scale-up capital," he added.

"The start-ups have developed these products in a short time. This demonstrates that the Incubation, facilitation, funding and ecosystem building efforts by BBC is bearing fruits," Dr Jitendra Kumar, Managing Director of BBC said. He also said that BBC has launched a support platform for Innovators developing products for fighting against COVID-19 and that some more products for the diagnosis and various therapies are being developed at the centre.

Meena Nagaraj, Director, Directorate of Electronics, IT/BT and Managing Director, Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society (KITS), said, "I assure these start-ups of all possible support in facilitating marketing and distribution."

Most start-ups, who launched their products today have been funded through Elevate 100 programme and are mentored and Incubated at BBC, she informed.

The occasion also saw the signing of MoU between IIM, Bangalore and BBC.

Signing the MoU on behalf of IIM, Bangalore, Prof. K Kumar, Dean, IIM said that that expertise and capabilities of IIM in market analysis and scale-up of businesses help in access to venture capital including hand holding the start-ups after they have done proof of concept studies at BBC. "This would also help the start-ups to navigate through market forces and build them as big businesses."

The eight products are--Padma Vitals +, Malli's Cordytea, CD4 Shield, BeamRoti, Immune booster daily drops, VegPhal, Water Stizer and Anti-Micobial HVAC module.

( With inputs from ANI )