The Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched the Indian Space Association (ISpA), a premier industry association of space and satellite companies, on 11th October, 2021.

MapmyIndia (Founding member – ISpA) and other founding members including Bharti Airtel, Larson & Toubro, Nelco (Tata Group) addressed and thanked the Prime Minister on his vision of making India Aatmanirbhar, technologically advanced and a leading player in the space arena.

Also present at the launch event were Shri Ashwin Vaishnav, Union Minister of Communications, Electronics & IT; Shri Ajit Doval, National Security Advisor of India; Dr Jitender Singh, Hon’ble Minister of State – Department of Space; Gen Bipin Rawat, Chief of Defence Staff of India; Shri K Sivan, Chairman, ISRO and Shri Pawan Goenka, Chairman, IN-SPACe.

Speaking on the occasion the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi said: “Today is the day the Indian space sector receives new wings. For 75 years since independence, Indian space has been dominated by a single umbrella of Indian government and government institutions. Scientists of India have made huge achievements in these decades, but the need of the hour is that there should be no restrictions on Indian talent, whether it is in the public sector or in the private sector. In a way, the country has given a new gift to the talent of India’s entrepreneurs by opening up India’s space sector in its 75th year of independence. Let this collective power of India’s population take the space sector forward in an organized manner. The Indian Space Association (ISpA) will play a huge role in this.”

Represented by leading homegrown and global corporations with advanced space and satellite technologies capabilities, ISpA aims to be the collective voice of the India Space industry. The association will engage with stakeholders across the ecosystem to formulate an enabling policy framework that fulfils the government’s vision.

On behalf of MapmyIndia, Rakesh Verma (Co-founder & CMD) and Rohan Verma (CEO & ED) had the privilege and pleasure of addressing the Prime Minister for his government’s historic reforms concerning the mapping and geospatial sector.

Rohan also thanked ISRO and other government departments for all their support and joint initiatives which are leveraging MapmyIndia’s ready-to-use, indigenous, comprehensive digital map data for all India, map APIs, 4D RealView mapping technology and eLoc, to improve the lives of all 130+ crore Indians and benefit all segments of India’s economy through Aatmanirbhar, indigenous, highly advanced mapping and geospatial technology capabilities.

MapmyIndia partners with the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Happiest Minds Technologies to make India’s airspace map for drone operations, which is put up on the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) DigitalSky platform. This collaboration aims to help civilian drone operators check the demarcated no-fly zones or where they need to undergo certain formalities before flying a drone.

The features of the DigitalSky platform include an interactive map demarcating the green, yellow and red zones across the country.

The green zone is the airspace up to 400 feet undesignated as either a red or yellow zone and is up to 200 feet above the area located between 8-12 km from the perimeter of an operational airport. In green zones, no permission is required for operating drones with an all-up weight of up to 500 kgs.

The yellow zone is the airspace above 400 feet in a designated green zone; above 200 feet in the area located between 8-12 km from the perimeter of an operational airport and above ground in the area located between 5-8 km from the periphery of an operating airport.
Drone operations in the yellow zone require permission from the concerned air traffic control authority – AAI, IAF, Navy, HAL etc., as the case may be. Yellow zones have been reduced from 45 km earlier to 12 km from the airport perimeter.

The red zones are a ‘no-drone zone’ within which drones can be operated only after permission from the Central Government. The airspace map may be modified by authorised entities from time to time. Anyone planning to operate a drone should mandatorily check the latest airspace map for any changes in zone boundaries.

The airspace map of India is developed by MapmyIndia and Happiest Minds and is available on the digital sky platform of DGCA (https://digitalsky.dgca.gov.in/home).

EatFit, one of India’s largest healthy food platforms, will be integrating MapmyIndia’s Location APIs that will enable it to improve the app experience, reduce delivery times and improve the overall user experience.

With food delivery becoming an increasingly common thing of the present, especially during the pandemic, ordering food has never been more convenient or safe. Keeping that in mind, this partnership aims to make the food experience customer-centric.

MapmyIndia’s location APIs augment the EatFit applications in several ways to enable the map functionality through the address picker and auto-suggest features. Additionally, to aid in accurate delivery, MapmyIndia is providing the routing algorithm for tracking and distance matrix APIs to improve EatFit kitchen discoverability and hence optimise the delivery network.

EatFit and MapmyIndia aspire to provide users with the ultimate food delivery experience that can help make India healthier and hyperlocal by utilising the best-in-class location tech that MapmyIndia has built for the entirety of India. Currently, EatFit is present in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mysore & Coimbatore, and further planning expansion across India.

A few words from team Eatfit and team MapmyIndia on the exciting development:

“At its core EatFit is all about its customers. We strive to keep serving the best and healthiest food options to them at their convenience and offer a great customer experience across the board”, commented Ankit Nagori, co-founder, EatFit. “The integration of MapMyIndia into our app is a step further in this direction. We believe that their highly-capable team will help elevate hyperlocal navigation and strengthen our delivery network, thus making ordering in food from EatFit a far superior experience.”

“We’ve been great fans of EatFit as a business, and Ankit as an entrepreneur, and are excited about the benefits they are bringing to users. We’re happy at MapmyIndia to move a step ahead in our endeavour to deliver cutting edge, location-based cloud services. By integrating our Location APIs with EatFit, we are not just offering our services but also aspiring to provide a much faster delivery & a healthier experience to the Indian consumer. Whether someone is at home or on the go, they can use EatFit to order a healthy meal,” says Rohan Verma, CEO & Executive Director at MapmyIndia.

This Gandhi Jayanti, let’s contribute and support in making India cleaner. On this day, we are extremely proud to share you can actively join & participate in Swachh Bharat Mission by reporting places that are clean, not clean, & that you have cleaned and report them on the MapmyIndia move app (https://www.mapmyindia.com/move/) and web app (https://maps.MapmyIndia.com).

If we all support this initiative, we can see every clean and unclean place in India and we can clean the unclean places near us – and contributing to #MyCleanIndia

How you can participate:

1. Download MapmyIndia Move App on Android & iOS or open maps.mapmyindia.com in your browser

2. Open the app, from the home screen, swipe up to open the Quick Access Menu or click on the + icon the map on the web portalDownload the app from MapmyIndia.com/move and long press on the map to report, or open maps.MapmyIndia.com in your browser and right-click on map/click + on map.

3. Tap on Report an Issue Category on the app

4. Now, select the Swachh Bharat Category on the app or on the web portal

5. Report places that are clean/not clean/and those you have cleaned.
6. Share and tag 2 friends to do the same on social media

7. Use the hashtag #SwachhBharatMission
8. Tag official handle of MapmyIndia @mapmyindia and MapmyIndia maps @MapmyIndiamaps

* The post that generates 25+ likes or retweets with the link will be eligible for the prize.
“Be the change that you want to see in the world.”
So, let’s step up in support of the Swachh Bharat Mission and help mark places on Map myIndia maps and super app.

Wish you all a happy Gandhi Jayanti 2021.

• 2D, 3D, 4D and HD digital mapping, GIS, geospatial analytics and AI solutions for drones
• Real-time drone identification and tracking GPS-based IoT devices and IoT software platform
• Enables positive benefits of drones to economy and society while ensuring safety, security and privacy
• Drone Innovation Challenge 1.0 with up to Rs 1 crore for winners and up to Rs 4 lakh each for qualifying participants designed to encourage indigenous innovation in Drone-tech.

MapmyIndia, India’s leading digital data and technology products and platforms company for maps, geospatial and location-based IoT, announced its solutions for the burgeoning Drone industry. MapmyIndia also launched the Drone Innovation Challenge 1.0 in partnership with Drone Federation of India (DFI), a premiere industry body that promotes drone-tech and strives towards building a safer and scalable unmanned aviation industry.

MapmyIndia’s solutions for drones are targeted to empowering drone manufacturers, drone service providers, drone solution developers and drone users and enterprise customers. These solutions include products, platforms, and APIs for advanced and interactive 2D, 3D, 4D and HD digital mapping, GIS, geospatial analytics and AI, as well as real-time drone identification and tracking IoT and flight operations automation. Companies can register and apply to the Drone Innovation Challenge and those qualifying, will be given free access of up to Rs 4 lakhs each worth of MapmyIndia’s solutions, usage credits and technical support. Winners of the Challenge will be showcased widely and get up to Rs 1 crore or more worth of joint go-to-market support, business opportunities and funding support opportunities. Details about MapmyIndia’s solutions for drones and the MapmyIndia-DFI Drone Innovation Challenge 1.0 can be found at https://www.mapmyindia.com/solutions/drones.

On the occasion of the launch, Rohan Verma, CEO and Executive Director of MapmyIndia, said that: “The Government of India introduced pathbreaking regulatory reforms in the geospatial industry in February 2021, which liberalised, unshackled and unleashed the potential of the indigenous geospatial industry, for which we at MapmyIndia are extremely grateful. Similarly, they have started consultations for the draft Drone Rules 2021 which are aimed at liberalising the drone sector, which is a very welcome and progressive step. At MapmyIndia, we are completely aligned with the Honourable Prime Minister’s vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, and since our inception in 1995, have been focused on accelerating the advent of a Sarvottam Bharat, bringing the benefits of best-in-class, indigenously and in-house developed, digital maps and location technologies to all Indians and at the same time enabling India to become a global powerhouse in these strategically important sectors and advanced technologies. India’s drone market will grow rapidly to a size of worth USD 1.8 Billion by 2026, and we are focused on enabling, the best, most cutting edge drone solutions that positively benefit the Indian industry, economy and society and ensure our country’s and citizens’ safety, security and privacy. We are excited about the MapmyIndia-DFI partnership and are inviting drone manufacturers, service providers and solutions developers to participate in the Drone Innovation Challenge 1.0. In the past few years, we have funded and partnered with various drone startups and ecosystem players. We will help the winners of the Drone Innovation Challenge 1.0 and further scale up the indigenous ecosystem with joint go-to-market business and funding opportunities.”

Smit Shah, Director, Drone Federation of India said that “India is projected to become one of the largest markets for drones. While we focus on manufacturing drones in India, it is also crucial that we leverage India’s existing software development expertise to develop an indigenous suite of software solutions to create significant value addition for the drone ecosystem. We aim to find, support and promote such indigenous solutions as a part of this challenge. The MapmyIndia-DFI Drone Innovation Challenge 1.0, a unique competition has been specially designed to encourage innovation at the grass-roots level, with an appeal for innovation-driven tech companies. This challenge, the first in a series of initiatives that have been jointly planned will help create new technologies and solutions that will not only enhance the utility of drones across sectors but also make them accessible to millions of Indians.”

 Companies and Innovations Invited for the Drone Innovation Challenge

Companies manufacturing drones, providing services based on drones, or building software solutions for drones are invited to apply for the Challenge and encouraged to leverage MapmyIndia’s products, platforms, APIs, and solutions to innovate and build:

• Drones and drone components & sensors that help in surveying, mapping, surveillance, inspection, delivery and transportation use cases across various enterprise, government, agriculture, mining, smart city, law enforcement, security, and defence verticals.
• Drones meant for consumer, recreational and travel and tourism applications including geo-tagged photography and videography etc.
• Map-based drone software solutions like interactive ground control systems, drone fleet management solutions, industry-specific drone data processing and visualization platforms, unmanned drone traffic management solutions, drone delivery systems, drone surveillance and inspection solutions
• Drone monitoring, tracking and security systems, and solutions that help identify and counter rogue drones.

To apply to the Drone Innovation Challenge 1.0, please visit mapmyindia.com/solutions/drones.