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 Meta on Wednesday announced a new Mixed Reality (MR) programme in India that includes a grant of $250,000 for the homegrown startups and developers to build apps and experiences.

They can build apps using Meta’s Presence Platform -- the company's broad range of machine perception and AI capabilities for the Meta Quest Platform and metaverse. 

According to the company, the fund seeks to nurture innovation and build an ecosystem of XR technologies in the country. 

“Meta is committed to building the XR ecosystem in India. The Presence Platform is an integral part of the metaverse vision, aiming to make virtual experiences more tangible and accessible,” said Sandhya Devanathan, Vice President for Meta in India.

As part of the programme, a selected group of up to five Indian developers and startups will receive a financial grant, along with dedicated mentoring and guidance from the Meta Reality Labs experts. 

They will also have an opportunity to upload their product to Quest App Lab and become part of Meta’s growing developer ecosystem. 

Selected startups will also get an introduction to leading local venture capital funds at the end of the programme, said Meta.

“We believe that this fund and programme will accelerate the creation and adoption of VR and MR experiences in the country and  give Indian developers an opportunity to go global with their innovations,” Devanathan added.

The fund is now open for applicants, inviting both established and emerging startups and developers to experiment with the skills offered by the Presence Platform. 

The chosen developers will need to integrate Presence Platform into existing or new Meta Quest apps via features such as Passthrough, Scene Understanding, Spatial Anchors, Shared Spatial Anchors, Voice SDK, Text to Speech, Interaction SDK for Hand Tracking and Social Presence APIs, said the company.