Electronics, IT can play a crucial role in building India’s toy industry ecosystem

New Delhi, Nov 23 India has a growing market of electronic toys and to build the domestic toy industry ecosystem, electronics and IT can play a crucial role, the government said on Saturday.

This was conveyed during the convocation ceremony of the first batch of engineering graduates, celebrated by the IT Ministry, C-DAC, Indian Toy Industries and LEGO Group, who have spent one year training under the project ‘Development of Electronics and IT-based Control and Automation Solutions for Consumer Electronic Goods (Toy Industry)’.

The project is a tailored-made initiative of the R&D group of MeitY to foster the growth of the Indian electronic toys industry by developing prototypes and equipping young engineers, including from under-represented communities with the skills needed to design such toys.

“I am very happy that the building blocks for it are getting created and the next generation of engineers are working towards it. This programme can be formalised in a bigger way to cater more students and more impact in overall promotion of the Toy industries,” said S. Krishnan, Secretary, MeitY.

“We could setup a Centre of Excellence (CoE) with the help of STPI/MSH and other institutes with electronic toys in focus. It will help in creating entrepreneurship/startups,” he mentioned.

Under this MeitY initiative, young engineers were selected from across India from SC/ST and NER background.

They were engaged in R&D activities for a year, with hands-on experience in designing and developing electronic toys for the first six months, working and learning in the toy labs at C-DAC-Noida followed by a six-month training at industry to create toy prototypes based on industry needs.

The participants were provided with a monthly stipend of Rs 25,000 for one year, according to the ministry.

To provide a global exposure to the interns, the LEGO Group has joined as a knowledge partner.