In the recent years, the government of India has initiated various schemes like Make In India, Startup India, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM)4, etc. to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in the Indian commercial ecosystem.
This has also made increasingly evident that achieving the goal of self - sufficiency for the Indian military will require a means to incorporate innovation rapidly in the weapons procurement process.
Ministry of Defence aims to create an ecosystem through iDEX (Innovations for Defence Excellence) framework which fosters innovation and encourages technology development in Defence by engaging R&D institutes, academia, industries, start- ups and even individual innovators.
iDEX is funded and managed by a ‘Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO)’ formed as a ‘not for profit’ company as per Section 8 of the Companies Act 2013 for this purpose. DIO provides high level policy guidance to iDEX.