First Technology Development Board (TDB) call under RDI Fund focuses on supporting projects at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 and above.
- TRL is a measure of estimating technology maturity of core technologies until these technologies, or products utilizing them, attain market readiness.
- Originally introduced by NASA, the TRL scale is a metric with nine TRLs for describing the maturity of a technology from ideation stage (TRL-1) to highest degree of application/commercial readiness (TRL-9).
About RDI Fund
- Special Purpose Fund under RDI Scheme which is a flagship initiative under Department of Science and Technology (DST).
- Objective: Accelerating investment in India's RDI ecosystem and support private sector enterprises, startups, and industries working in sunrise and strategic sectors to transform ideas into globally competitive technologies and products.
- Corpus: Rs.1 lakh crore over six years.
- Mode of Funding include Loans (long tenure collateral free) upto 50% of fund requirement, Equity participation upto 25% of assistance sought, and Debt to Equity Conversion at a later date.
- Priority Sectors:
- Energy Security, Transition and Climate Change
- Deep Technology (Quantum, Robotics and Space)
- Artificial Intelligence for Indian Applications
- Biotechnology and Medical Technologies
- Digital Economy and Digital Agriculture
