Telecom Technology Development Fund

The scheme is envisaged to bridge the digital divide by developing and manufacturing the state-of-the-art technologies for rural and remote areas. The objectives are, inter alia, to promote:

Technology Ownership and indigenous Manufacturing (Atmanirbhar Bharat) & reduce import and open up export opportunities;

Proliferation of next-generation Telecom technologies in Rural and Remote areas;

Creating a culture of Technology co-creation and co-innovation;

Promote the ecosystem for research, design, prototyping, development, proof of concept testing, IPR creation, field testing, security, certification, and manufacturing of telecom products, end-to-end Solutions, Usecases, Pilots, inter alia; develop and establish relevant standards to meet national requirements and enable their standardization in international standardization bodies;

Promote rural-specific communication technology application/use case development that caters to the needs of rural masses and adds value to their day-to-day activities both economic and social;

Create synergies among the Academia, Research Institutes, Start-ups, and Industry for capacity building and development of the telecom ecosystem through outreach to build rural/remote areas relevant technologies and solutions;

Bridge the gap between R&D and commercialization of products and solutions;

Enable proliferation of affordable broadband and mobile services;

Enable technology demonstration, product integration, pilots, and field trials of the products and solutions;

Enable Technological/business model innovation in solutions and services by utilizing existing infrastructure of USOF/DoT/GoI funded projects; or

Commercialize developed technologies under the scheme. USOF schemes shall incorporate necessary provisions to ensure to enable the rollout of these indigenously developed and piloted technologies developed in all its models.