MeitY and Drone Federation India Launch NIDAR 2.0 Challenge Built Around India's VEGA Chip

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), working with the Drone Federation India, has launched the second edition of the National Innovation Challenge for Drone Application and Research, known as NIDAR 2.0, under the government's SwaYaan initiative. The launch event took place at Electronics Niketan in New Delhi, held in hybrid format with students, faculty, government officials, and industry leaders participating both in person and online.

 

S. Krishnan, secretary at MeitY, launched the challenge's problem statements, poster, and rulebook. He was followed by remarks from Amitesh Kumar Sinha, additional secretary at MeitY and CEO of the India Semiconductor Mission, along with Tulika Pandey, a scientist and group coordinator at MeitY, and Smit Shah, president of the Drone Federation India, both of whom spoke about the SwaYaan capacity-building initiative and the NIDAR 2.0 challenge itself. Senior officials from MeitY, the Ministries of Civil Aviation, Defence, and Home Affairs, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the armed forces, and figures from academia and industry also took part.

 

Krishnan said NIDAR 2.0 moves students from simply flying drones to building what he called the drone's brain, and that having that brain run on India's own VEGA processor means the program is training engine...