The MILES Challenge: Providing the Correct Platform to Budding Innovators and Entrepreneurs

Innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit have always been imperative for stimulating growth. If capitalised well, they can lead to an increase in productivity, employment, and thus, improve the health of the economy. Providing a platform to innovative entrepreneurs bringing change is vital.

This is where one such initiative steps in.

The MILES Challenge

The MILES (M⁺ Innovation Lab for Energy and Sustainability) Challenge aims to identify and provide a platform to early-stage start-ups with ready to deploy solutions in the Clean Energy ecosystem in India.

India’s energy story has seen exponential growth over the last decade, with market development and technological advancements in renewable energy and electric mobility. Identifying and promoting new ideas in this segment is the next step in accelerating India’s energy trajectory. The MILES Challenge provides one such platform to these innovators and entrepreneurs to exhibit their ideas and gain recognition.

Launched by Amplus Solar, a member of PETRONAS group in association with GoMassive Earth Network, The MILES Challenge is more than just a start-up accelerator for Energy pioneers; it aims to provide them with mentorship as well as give them access to resources in the Energy Industry.

Ernst & Young LLP will be the Process Advisors for the event. They will be responsible for operationalizing the entire awards process and moderating the Jury rounds to maintain comprehensive audit trail of the winners of the challenge.

Amplus has also committed to support the winners of The MILES Challenge through seed capital that will help these start-ups to scale up.

The Focus Areas of The MILES Challenge

The focus areas of the challenge are:

1. Distributed Solar

Any solution that helps to fasten the pace of adoption and/or adds economic and process efficiencies in the design, construction and maintenance of distributed solar plants for the Residential and the Commercial & Industrial customers.

2. IoT Applications in Energy

Sensing and analysing data has significant, but not yet fully commercialised, use-cases in the Energy industry. Any solution that builds on the IoT stack to enable such unlocking is sought here.

3. Battery Storage

Given the infirm nature of renewable power sources, storage technologies are needed to increase adoption further. We are looking at solutions in the domain of storage integration with renewables which can be commercialised.

4. Electric Mobility

Any solution which has a focus on adding value to the EV mobility space – can be IoT applications, battery integrations, financial inclusion models etc.

The Process

The applications for participating in The MILES Challenge are open till 31^st January 2021. Start-ups based in India working in the focus areas of the challenge can apply to The MILES Challenge free of cost.

All start-ups that apply online will go through a screening process. The start-ups shortlisted are the Green List. These teams will be invited to give a detailed pitch presentation and product demo to the esteemed Jury, including senior officials of leading international institutions like the World Bank, UNEP, IIM Ahmedabad among others, will evaluate the competition.

The entire process will be conducted on a virtual platform moderated by the Ernst & Young team.

The Reward

The Green List will get an access to GoMassive’s Angel network and will get an opportunity to present their work to it. They will also be entitled to mentorship and support from GoMassive experts and will get an exposure to VCs and the Energy ecosystem.

The winners of The MILES Challenge will receive the MILES 2021 Award and an equity investment of upto $100,000 for scaling the start-up. In addition to this, Amplus will provide them a chance to become business partners with Amplus and its partners. They will also get mentorship and support from Amplus’ energy experts and an Exposure to VCs and the Energy ecosystem.

Boosting the Entrepreneurial Spirit in the Renewable Energy Industry

Amplus also began as a young start-up with an idea in the space of renewable energy and has now created a repute for itself in the Renewable Industry. Amplus has created this initiative with the intent of ‘paying it forward’, helping other Indian start-ups with innovative ideas in the clean energy space achieve their potential. It has gone the extra mile with The MILES Challenge by providing a platform to the budding entrepreneurs who aspire to create a similar reputation for themselves one day.

Amplus Solar

January 12, 2021