The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), in collaboration with Google Cloud India, Antler in India, Paytm, Protean and Startup India has announced 'Build for Bharat' initiative.

• The initiative aims to tackle diverse challenges in digital commerce, promoting industry innovation to develop practical solutions in this space.
• ‘Build for Bharat’intends to tap into India’s technological and entrepreneurial potential with an expected participation of 200K+ participants representing startups, companies and colleges.

Key Categories of the Initiative:

1. NextGen Ventures (Category 1): Focuses on propelling venture creation on ONDC, providing a pathway for aspiring founders and early-stage teams to raise capital, launch, and scale companies. Winners in this category stand to gain exclusive opportunities, mentorship, and equity-free grants.
2. Scalable Solutions (Category 2): Invites participation from organizations and individuals with a focus on addressing friction points faced by Network Participants (NPs) on the ONDC platform.
3. Foundation Solutions (Category 3): Designed for college students over 18 years of age, aiming to identify proof of concept for the friction points faced by NPs.

Prizes and Collaborations:

• Category 1 winners stand to gain exclusive opportunities from Antler in India, mentorship from industry leaders, and equity-free grants of up to 5 crore rupees ($600,000).
• Category 2 and 3 winners will receive Cloud credits from Google Cloud India to foster further innovation in their projects.