MG Motor India Signs Up 6 More Start-Ups Under “MG Developer Program & Grant”

MG (Morris Garages) Motor India has announced that it has signed up 6 more start-ups for its ongoing MG Developer Program & Grant. The 6 finalists include Highway Delite, Socialcore, InCabEx, CamCom, ClearQuote, and the Alexa-based project Meeseeks. The start-ups will receive a grant and mentoring from technology experts and may get an opportunity to work directly with specialized MG teams on selected projects.

Demonstrating its firm focus on encouraging innovation within the start-up community, MG Motor India has already supported over 60 start-ups since 2017 to drive innovation in the automobile space of India. Such start-ups are working in the fields of engine & emissions, technology, child in-car safety, navigation, connectivity, and electric vehicles ecosystem alongside others. The overall objective of the program is to support the local start-up community by creating a specialized grant. The brand intends to indigenously foster innovation and contribute towards the development of the start-up ecosystem in India, thereby holistically contributing to the society.

The MG Developer Program & Grant is a part of the carmaker’s focus on innovation as a core pillar of the organization. Launched in partnership with several tech giants including Adobe, Cognizant, SAP, Airtel, TomTom, Unlimit, and others, the program aims to nurture ground-breaking solutions within the Indian urban mobility space.

Speaking on the development, Rajeev Chaba, President & MD, MG Motor India said, “MG thrives on innovation and has developed a symbiotic relationship with the Indian start-up ecosystem. Our goal is to indigenously develop a comprehensive, sustainable, and smart infrastructure for urban mobility in our country. The MG Developer Program has received an overwhelming response and we welcome all teams who have been signed as a part of the initiative. We look forward to mentoring and closely working with them. MG will also explore synergies with these start-ups and may deploy their solutions in its upcoming vehicles.”

The program had received over 300 entries, out of which, 60 teams were shortlisted in the first round. These teams were provided mentorship by 25 industry experts including MG India’s leadership as well as its technology ecosystem partners, making it one of the largest mentoring programs’ in the automotive segment.

Amongst the selected candidates, Highway Delite is India’s first free travel app to make highway travel and road trips both safe and fun. Meeseeks leverages Alexa/MG’s Voice Assistant to digitally manage and improve customer’s service experience.

Socialcore uses Artificial Intelligence to enhance customer interactions with sales improvement and cost reduction, while InCabEx creates a better in-cabin experience by personalizing car profiles as per users’ preferences.

CamCom is an AI-based start-up that provides defect and damage assessment while ClearQuote generates repair estimates via images/videos of a damaged car.

The 6 start-ups will be joining the already signed companies including Voxomos, Driftly, and Innvolution under the MG Developer Program & Grant.

MG’s journey with start-ups started back in 2017 with its first MG Innovation Hunt that was launched in partnership with TiE Delhi. Since then, MG India has conducted a total of 6 start-up programs, in partnership with India’s start-up community and leading educational institutions, all coming together in the MG Developer Program & Grant. The various MG start-up programs have attracted over 750 applications from start-ups and innovators so far in auto tech across India. 

About MG Motor India

Founded in the UK in 1924, Morris Garages vehicles were world famous for their sports cars, roadsters, and cabriolet series. MG vehicles were much sought after by many celebrities, including the British Prime Ministers and even the British Royal Family, for their styling, elegance, and spirited performance. The MG Car Club, set up in 1930 at Abingdon in the UK, has thousands of loyal fans, making it by far one of the world’s largest clubs for a car brand. MG has evolved into a modern, futuristic and innovative brand over the last 96 years. MG Motor India has commenced its manufacturing operations at its car manufacturing plant at Halol in Gujarat.

'Indian R&D centers need to pull up'

Current economic downturn is an ideal opportunity for R&D subsidiaries in India to showcase their value proposition says a new study .

Zinnov Management Consulting, a leading management consulting firm in India, today asserted that the current economic downturn is an ideal opportunity for R&D subsidiaries in India to showcase their value proposition of "Innovation at lower cost" and help their parent companies tide over these tough times.

According to Zinnov, Indian subsidiaries should proactively adopt various measures such as an effective cost cutting strategy without compromising on innovation, infuse realism in their employees and correct some of those desperate measures that centers had taken in the past few years to control attrition and scale faster.

Create a myth buster presentation on India centers (to dispel myths like cost escalation, lower productivity, lack of innovation), sell aggressively to their parent companies, attract high quality talent from top engineering institutes that once preferred Financial services, attract senior talent from overseas, increase awareness among engineers on the economic downturn and its overall implications are also some of the things that they would have to do. Another key initiative should be increasing interaction with key global stakeholders in the parent company to keep India center in the spotlight.

Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov Management Consulting, said, "This is the time for leadership and not just Management. India centers should project a stronger India Center image by articulating value to their Global stakeholders and get high value work transitioned to India. The current crisis can be diffused if India centers continue to deliver innovation at lower cost. Our recommendations are based on our internal analysis and discussions with the various industry stalwarts over a period of time."

Zinnov also deliberated that as Global companies today are looking at Eastern Europe and China as alternative off shoring locations, there might not be an upsurge (similar to the 2002-2005 period post the dotcom bust) in the number of projects transitioned to India. Companies doing more than 20 percent R&D work in India may also now look at expanding in other locations and a probable cut by the Global companies in their R&D spend may hurt the aspect of innovation. However, these factors should not act as dampeners and India centers can continue to fulfill the promising growth story by driving variety of initiatives across the value chain.