Microsoft and Tezos look to support tech startups in India

The companies, in collaboration with Lumos Labs, have launched the “Century Program” for this purpose

Lumos Labs, a management company, is collaborating with Microsoft India and Tezos India to launch the “Century Program.” This is an enterprise blockchain startup program that is meant to help startups based in India to launch blockchain projects and solutions.

“Microsoft’s Century Program is a Corporate- SME bridge program, which will help unearth blockchain solutions for industry-specific use cases. These use cases will be built out into enterprise-grade PoCs (proof-of-concept) (evaluated independently), which will be taken to market by each sponsor.

“Each industry track under the Century program will go through a journey of 4 months. The aim of the program is to bring out 100 solutions for all the 7 tracks over the course of 18 months starting July 2020,” the website explained.

The startups must be ready to go with their project, and their solutions must cater to challenges for the following sectors: media and entertainment, oil and natural gas, manufacturing, trade finance, telecommunications, healthcare and the public sector.

Tezos India will be in charge of helping the solution providers build their projects on the company blockchain. Microsoft India will be working on accelerating the journey of these startups through mentorship, as well as access to the company’s vast technological resources.

The use cases will be fleshed out into independently evaluated enterprise-grade proof-of-concepts, which will be assisted to market by the major sponsors.

ŠKODA AUTO DigiLab India, which is a division of ŠKODA AUTO Volkswagen India Pvt, recently announced its partnership as the first original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for the Discrete Manufacturing track of the Microsoft Century Program. The company is offering its development expertise and knowledge in digitisation for the startups.

The cryptocurrency industry in India has experienced a significant amount of growth ever since the Supreme Court of India repealed the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) ban on cryptocurrencies.