ELCIA Smart City
Drone-AI Challenge 2026
Build AI for Safer, Smarter Cities.
AI-Based Controlled Drone & Edge-AI Challenge for Smart City Safety and Monitoring. Turn Electronics City into a live innovation context.
Aerial & edge AI for the smart city stack.
India's smart cities need solutions that can identify problems early, support faster response and reduce pressure on civic teams. The ELCIA Smart City Drone-AI Challenge turns Electronics City into a live innovation context where students, researchers and young startups build AI models on sample drone and city video.
Teams will work on mobility incidents, monsoon and road risks, waste, public safety and emergency visibility. Shortlisted teams will convert their ideas into working detection pipelines, dashboards, alerts, reproducible GitHub repositories and demonstration-ready prototypes.
Four reasons this matters.
See risks earlier
Detect moving traffic, water, waste, smoke, crowd and infrastructure events before they become larger operational problems.
Extend visibility
Use aerial and city video to complement fixed cameras, field inspection and citizen reports.
Turn evidence into action
Attach severity, location, timestamp and visual proof to operator-ready alerts and response recommendations.
Create a pilot pathway
Advance the strongest prototypes toward controlled pilot consideration in Electronics City and similar urban campuses.
Pick a track. Build the detection stack.
Smart Mobility & Road Incident Intelligence
Build video-AI systems using ELCIA-provided sample traffic videos to detect queues, blockage, wrong-side movement and accident-related congestion. Classify incident type and severity, display location-aware alerts and recommend diversion, response or escalation workflows.
Monsoon, Roads & Civic Infrastructure Intelligence
Use road, drain and rainfall-condition videos to identify waterlogging, potholes, drainage overflow, damaged footpaths and surface risks. Tag each issue with zone, severity, time and visual evidence, then create a maintenance priority and closure-tracking dashboard.
Public Safety, Waste & Emergency Intelligence
Detect illegal dumping, waste overflow, smoke or fire, unsafe crowding and restricted-zone entry in public and industrial spaces. Create evidence-backed alerts, assign response ownership and track action status through a simple workflow dashboard.
From register to demonstrate.
Register
Submit one team registration with exactly two participants.
Understand
Attend the inauguration call and review themes, datasets, rubric and proposal template.
Propose
Submit a concise 1–2 page plan covering the AI approach, dashboard and testing workflow.
Build
Top 15 teams develop the AI pipeline, dashboard, alerts and reproducible GitHub evidence online.
Present
Teams demonstrate online; Top 5 advance to integration and the physical final.
Demonstrate
Top 5 present on 9 September; winners are recognised at ELCIA Tech Summit on 10 September.
What every team ships.
Expected outputs shortlisted teams should hand in for review and demonstration.
- A working video-AI detection pipeline for the selected theme.
- A dashboard showing event type, severity, location/zone, timestamp and visual evidence.
- Alert and escalation logic with recommended civic/safety response.
- A public or evaluator-accessible GitHub repository with code, setup steps and documentation.
- A demo video and sample outputs.
- A clear statement of known limitations, test conditions and future improvements.
Who can participate.
Open to students, researchers and startups that are not more than two years old.
Participation is team-based: exactly 2 members per team.
Both participants must provide valid and regularly monitored email addresses.
Teams may register from any Indian State or Union Territory.
The online build uses sample video inputs; owning a drone is not required for the registration or online build stage.
Only shortlisted teams will receive detailed build/submission instructions.
Nine stages. One summit finale.
25 Jul – 08 Aug 2026
Registration
Online registrations are open from 25 July to 8 August 2026 for two-member teams. Themes, challenge details, and expectations are available during the registration period.
9 Aug 2026
Inauguration Call
Challenge structure, datasets, goals and proposal template released.
9 – 11 Aug 2026
Proposal Submission
1–2 page plan: theme, AI approach, dashboard, workflow and testing.
12 – 14 Aug 2026
Team Shortlisting
Top 15 selected for the online technical build.
15 – 27 Aug 2026
Online Build
AI pipeline, dashboard, alerts, GitHub documentation and demo evidence.
28 Aug – 2 Sep 2026
Online Review
Working solution presentation and Top 5 selection.
7 – 8 Sep 2026
Integration & Demo Readiness
Final inputs, dashboard, alerts, workflow and optional controlled aerial-video validation.
9 Sep 2026
Physical Demonstration
Top 5 live demos, jury Q&A and final scoring.
10 Sep 2026
Awards at ELCIA Tech Summit
Winner announcement and pilot-worthy solution shortlist.
What the jury looks for.
Problem understanding & civic relevance
Clear user, location, incident and response workflow.
AI / detection quality
Appropriate approach, meaningful results, severity logic and testing evidence.
Dashboard & alert usability
Readable evidence, event status, ownership and recommended response.
Technical execution
Working pipeline, sound engineering choices and clear limitations.
Reproducibility & documentation
Usable repository, setup instructions, outputs and demo evidence.
Presentation & Q&A
Clear explanation, credible validation and practical next steps.
A ₹1,10,000 prize pool.
First Prize
₹50,000
Team prize
Second Prize
₹35,000
Team prize
Third Prize
₹25,000
Team prize
Top 5 teams present at the physical final; 2–3 pilot-worthy solutions may be considered for controlled pilot discussions.
Answers before you register.
Students, researchers and startups that are not more than two years old may participate from across India.
Each team must have exactly two participants. Solo registrations and teams larger than two should not be accepted.
No. Registration, proposal and the online build are based on sample video inputs. Controlled drone or aerial-video inputs may be introduced for finalist integration, subject to organiser arrangements.
A video-AI detection pipeline, dashboard, evidence-backed alert logic, reproducible GitHub repository and demonstration video for one of the three themes.
Proposals are evaluated and the Top 15 teams are invited to the online technical build challenge.
The Top 5 teams selected after online review are invited to the physical demonstration on 9 September 2026.
Winners are announced at ELCIA Tech Summit on 10 September 2026.
Allow this unless the organisers publish a restriction. The registration form records each participant's institution and State/UT separately.
Each participant must enter a valid, regularly monitored and different email address because official communication may be sent to both team members.
Published on the website and emailed to shortlisted teams. Until confirmed, venue is displayed as "Venue to be announced".
Questions? Talk to us.
Partners and organizers.
Build AI for a safer,
smarter India.
Registrations Open from 25 July 2026. Register your two-member team and get access to challenge datasets, the proposal template and the inauguration call.
