OctaNE CoE Aizawl - Gaming & Entertainment

Which programme to apply to

There is only one route in, the Open Challenge Program, and it runs in numbered rounds rather than continuously. Check whether a round is currently open before you plan around it. The site has two Open Challenge Program pages that both call themselves current — the one reached from the top navigation is an older round, and the newer one is linked from the announcements strip on the home page. Trust the one with the later dates.

Pick the Aizawl (Gaming & Entertainment) form. Each of the eight centres has its own form on the application portal, and applying on the wrong one puts you in a different domain's pool in a different state.

How applications work

Applications go through an online portal, not by email. A round runs to a published timetable: announcement and registration opening, a closing date about three weeks later, a few days of pre-screening, a shortlist, then pitching over a few days and a result about a week after that. The whole round has taken roughly six weeks.

Get your paperwork straight before you start. You need a Private Limited Company, a Registered Partnership Firm or an LLP, incorporated within the last ten years. If you are not incorporated yet you can still apply in the founders' names, but you have to register the company within three months of being selected, so have a plan for that rather than discovering it late.

How selection works

Pre-screening happens on your written application. Earlier rounds have used a short video elevator pitch at this stage. Shortlisted applicants are invited to pitch in person to a panel at OctaNE in Guwahati, so budget for the trip from Aizawl or wherever you are based.

STPI lists what the panel weighs: whether the idea or technology genuinely leads to a product, how long you have been going, team size, how far the product has actually got — whether a proof of concept works, whether you have filed anything — your business plan and management structure, the founding team's experience and talent, the problem you solve and why your solution is worth paying for, your cost structure and the size of the market, your execution plan, what funds you already have, and any partners and customers.

What reviewers look for

Build a product, not a service. STPI says directly that services companies are not the focus, and this is the single most common reason a good-looking application does not fit.

Show something working. The funding is released against milestones — proof of concept first, then a prototype, then marketing — so an application that can point at a running build is arguing for the first milestone rather than asking to be trusted.

Be specific about gaming and entertainment. The Aizawl centre exists for that domain, and the site publishes a sample problem statement for it. You do not have to answer that problem, but reading it tells you what the panel has in mind.

Be honest about where you will sit. Selected startups are expected to work from the centre, which allots up to six seats per startup at a concessional rate and charges standard rates above that. If your team is elsewhere, raise it at the selection interview rather than after.

Plan for the exit. Incubation is capped at thirty-six months and progress is reviewed along the way, so a plan that reaches paying customers inside three years is the shape the programme is built around.

Before you apply

Write to octane@stpi.in with anything the round's page does not answer. Several document sections on the site list titles with no files behind them, so if you need the operational guidelines or the fund-disbursement milestones, ask for them.

OctaNE CoE Aizawl is a Centre of Entrepreneurship for gaming and entertainment startups in Aizawl, Mizoram. It is one of eight internetworked centres in the OctaNE cluster, run by Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) — an autonomous society under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology — through AIC STPINEXT INITIATIVES, the section 8 company STPI set up as its implementation vehicle. The eight centres sit under STPI's Guwahati Directorate, and each one carries a different technology domain.

The Aizawl centre's domain is Gaming & Entertainment. Its sister centres are IoT in Agriculture at Guwahati, Animation at Shillong, emerging technologies and AR/VR at Imphal, graphic design at Kohima, data analytics and AI at Agartala, IT applications in healthcare and agritech at Gangtok, and GIS including drone technology at Itanagar. Aizawl is a Phase-II centre, opened after the first three at Guwahati, Shillong and Imphal. This is a central government programme; no Mizoram state department is named anywhere on the OctaNE site as an owner, funder or partner of the Aizawl centre.

How programmes work

There is one way in: the Open Challenge Program, usually written OCP. It is a competitive round, not a rolling intake. All eight centres open at the same time, each with its own application form, and a founder applying to Aizawl picks the Gaming & Entertainment form. Rounds are numbered. The most recent one documented on the site is OCP 9.0, which opened on 20 April 2026, closed for applications on 11 May 2026, and announced results on 5 June 2026. Between rounds there is nothing to apply to, so the thing to watch for is the announcement of the next one.

STPI describes the programme as a way to find and back early-stage technology entrepreneurs, and what a selected startup gets is networking, mentoring, training, marketing and patenting support, direct funding in stages, and access to the centre's labs, tools, software and incubation space. The staged funding is tied to milestones — proof of concept, then a working prototype, then marketing — and STPI says it may be spent on cloud hosting, engaging mentors, creating intellectual property, seed capital and marketing costs.

Incubation runs to a fixed clock. STPI plans a formation stage of six months, a validation stage of twelve to twenty-four months and a test-marketing stage of six months, for a maximum of thirty-six months before a unit is expected to graduate. Units are reviewed periodically, and STPI is explicit that a unit can be asked to leave for not making progress as well as leaving because it has succeeded. It lists the signals it reads as success: the company has turned cash-flow positive, it has orders or market access from real customers, angels or venture funds have invested, or it qualifies for the startup tax benefits under sections 80-IAC and 56.

Who can apply

Applicants must be an incorporated Private Limited Company, a Registered Partnership Firm or an LLP, registered no more than ten years ago. Founders without a registered company may apply in their own names, but must incorporate within three months of being selected. Annual turnover must never have exceeded the programme's stated ceiling in any financial year since incorporation. The entity must not have been formed by splitting up or reconstructing an existing business, and must be working on innovation or improvement of a product, service or process with the potential to create jobs or wealth.

Two limits matter beyond the paperwork. The programme is for product companies — STPI says plainly that services companies are not considered. And selected startups are expected to work out of the centre, though STPI says how much can be discussed at the selection interview. There is no student-only gate, no requirement to be a Mizoram resident and no category restriction stated anywhere: applications are invited from startups and entrepreneurs generally.

Facilities

The Aizawl centre's own page lists incubation and co-working space, a domain-specific physical lab for gaming and entertainment, and a startup innovation zone. It says the centre has 53 plug-and-play seats, along with a conference room, meeting room and parking. The programme's own planning description allots Aizawl 100 seats, so the two figures on the site do not agree, and which one reflects the centre today cannot be told from its pages.

Space is not free. The centre allots up to six seats per startup at a concessional rate, and any seats beyond that are charged at standard rates subject to availability. Across the cluster, STPI describes ready-to-work plug-and-play space, access to domain labs, high-speed internet, a network operations centre, a workspace open around the clock with security and dedicated support, a tinkering lab and e-commerce facilitation.

Who runs it

Arvind Kumar, Director General of STPI, chairs the governing council of the OctaNE centres. Soumya Prakash Otta is Jurisdictional Director of the STPI-Guwahati Directorate and chief executive of the OctaNE centres, and Ashish Sharma is their chief operating officer. Subodh Sachan is Director for Innovation and Startups at STPI and chief innovation officer of STPINEXT INITIATIVES, and Sanjay Kumar Gupta is Managing Director of STPINEXT. K V Chandra Varma is Deputy Director and officer-in-charge of STPI-Aizawl. Pete Draper, Division Head and Chief Technical Director at Makuta VFX, is chief mentor for the Gaming & Entertainment centre at Aizawl, and Harsha P Deka is also listed as a mentor there.

Locations and contact

The Aizawl centre's page carries an address heading with nothing under it, and no street address for it is published. The only address on the site is the OctaNE headquarters at STPI, Borjhar, Guwahati. Enquiries go to octane@stpi.in. OctaNE keeps a news and events page — it has run investor connect events and a bootcamp at Guwahati — and a careers page that has carried staff vacancies at the centres. The site's success stories page says stories are coming, and no portfolio startup is named.