INDUS-X INITIATIVES (Syllabus: GS Paper 2 – IR)

Context: The maiden INDUS-X Investors Meet was recently organized in New Delhi by Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) and the US Department of Defence as a pre-cursor to the 2+2 Indo-US Ministerial Dialogue.

• The INDUS-X Educational Series (Gurukul) was also launched during the event.

iDEX Initiative

• About: The Government announced a central sector scheme named as Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) for 5 years from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• It was launched under the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO) under the Ministry of Defence
• Objective: To foster innovation and technology development and to provide financial support to nearly 300 Start-ups/MSMEs/individual innovators and about 20 Partner Incubators through Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO).

India-U.S. Defence Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X) Initiative

• About: It is an event conducted in Washington DC in June 2023.
• Conducted by: iDEX, in partnership with the US Department of Defence.
• Objective: To expand the strategic technology partnership and defence industrial cooperation between the start-up ecosystems, businesses and academic institutions.
• It includes: The collaboration agenda under the Defence Innovation Bridge includes the launch of Joint Challenges, Innovation Partnership Program, Academia partnership, Joint Innovation Fund, establishing of Testing and certification facilities in India etc.