According to a top Google executive, India is gradually transitioning into an app-first country and is perfectly positioned to become a key hub for global app innovation as digital use rises throughout the epidemic.

Purnima Kochikar, Google's Vice President of Play Partnerships, stated, "There is tremendous opportunity for Indian startups across the country, regardless of size, and location to thrive in the global app ecosystem. We are seeing innovations emerge from different parts of India, including tier-2 and tier-3 cities."

According to Kochikar, people outside of India spent 150 percent more time on Indian firms' applications and games in 2021 than they did in 2019. In comparison to 2019, the number of monthly active users on Google Play for Indian applications and games increased by 200 percent in 2021.

She also said that Google has mentored over 1,500 Indian companies to date, assisting them in scaling their businesses and capitalising on chances for development.

On March 2, Google and the Startup Hub of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) launched the inaugural batch of 100 Indian businesses as part of Appscale Academy, a growth and development programme for early to mid-stage startups throughout India.

These enterprises were chosen from among more than 400 applicants from throughout the country by a panel of judges comprising of officials from Nasscom, MeitY Startup Hub, and Google Play.

Kochikar added, "The Appscale Academy is an important milestone in Google's long journey to enable entrepreneurship and innovation in India. Our goal is to find innovative apps and games that cater to India's unique needs, and have the potential to scale globally.”

She said “more than one-third of the startups in its inaugural cohort hail from tier-two and tier-three cities and over 50% of the startups have a woman in a leadership role.”

According to MeitY Startup Hub CEO Jeet Vijay, “education and health are among two key needs that are top of mind for the country and these two verticals are represented heavily in the inaugural cohort”.

He said, “About two-third of the cohort are startups in sectors such as education, health, social, gaming, finance and e-commerce. It also includes startups supporting core communities in India in areas such as business-to-business (B2B), agriculture, and parenting”.

Stamurai (a speech therapy app for stuttering), Farmyng Club (a social platform for farmers), Bitclass (a live learning platform), Kutuki (a preschool learning app), LearnVern (a job-oriented skilling app focused on regional languages), Sunita's Makerspace (a community app to foster innovation), and Vivasayam (app promoting organic farming) are among the startups shortlisted in the cohort.

The project, which was initially announced in October 2021, would provide these businesses with a specialised curriculum on many areas of developing successful apps for the global market, including data security and privacy, user experience design, monetization, and worldwide market development.

The company stated, “They will receive access to virtual instructor-led webinars, self-learning material, and mentorship sessions with several local and global industry professionals, and select startups will have an opportunity to pitch to venture capitalists for funding.”

Kochikar underlined, “From consistently investing in Android and Play, to help entrepreneurs build great apps and find global audiences, to building discovery systems based on Google's machine learning and AI to surface the right apps to the right audiences, we have been rigorously supporting startups and developers at every stage of th

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