Code for the Capital | 2023

Smart City Innovation

Orchestrated By: SAINTS AND MASTERS

The Government of India's Smart City Mission is scaling up, and they need YOUR tech. Y4D Foundation presents the Bharat Tech Summit 2023 - Smart City Challenge. We aren't looking for ideas; we are looking for solutions.
The Prize: Paid Pilot opportunities with Municipal Corporations.
The Goal: Solve Traffic, Water, and Waste challenges.
If your startup has a TRL 6+ product, this is your gateway to B2G (Business-to-Government) success.

VIEW PROBLEM STATEMENTS

1.    Urban Mobility Crisis: Indian traffic heterogeneity (mixed vehicle types, pedestrian patterns) breaks standard lane detection and adaptive signal systems designed for homogeneous western traffic.
2.    Waste Management Inefficiency: Static collection schedules lead to overflow in high-density areas and wasted fuel on low-fill routes, costing municipalities millions annually.
3.    Water Infrastructure Losses: Non-Revenue Water (NRW) due to leakage and unauthorized connections ranges from 40-50% in many Indian cities, representing massive resource and revenue loss.
4.    Citizen Safety at Scale: Manual CCTV monitoring is impossible with thousands of cameras; automated anomaly detection must balance security with privacy concerns.
5.    Regulatory Feasibility: Solutions must navigate complex municipal procurement processes, data privacy regulations, and interoperability with legacy systems.
Innovation Challenge Tracks

Participants must select one of four specialized tracks aligned with India's informal workforce needs:
 

Track 1: Urban Mobility & Traffic
Challenge Statement: Develop an AI-driven Adaptive Traffic Signal Control System that uses existing CCTV infrastructure to optimize signal timing in real-time for mixed-traffic conditions specific to Indian urban environments.
Key Requirements:
•    Utilize existing municipal CCTV feeds (no new hardware installation required)
•    Real-time processing with <5-second latency
•    Vehicle classification across 8+ categories (cars, buses, two-wheelers, auto-rickshaws, cycles, pedestrians, animals)
•    Integration with existing traffic control systems
•    Dashboard for traffic management center operators
Target Municipalities: Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities with existing CCTV infrastructure.

Participants must select one of four specialized tracks aligned with India's informal workforce needs:
 

Track 2: Solid Waste Management
Challenge Statement: Create a low-cost IoT sensor network for community waste bins that optimizes collection truck routing, reducing fuel costs and ensuring "Zero Overflow" events in smart cities.
Key Requirements:
•    Low-cost ultrasonic or image-based fill-level sensors (<₹2,000 per unit)
•    4G/NB-IoT connectivity for real-time data transmission
•    Battery life of 12+ months or solar-powered operation
•    Dynamic route optimization algorithm for collection vehicles
•    Predictive analytics for seasonal demand patterns
•    Mobile app for collection vehicle drivers
Target Municipalities: All Smart City Mission cities with existing waste collection infrastructure.
 

Track 3: Water Security & Management
Challenge Statement: Build a predictive analytics model using flow-meter data and pressure sensors to pinpoint leakages and unauthorized connections in municipal water supply grids with <5-meter accuracy.
Key Requirements:
•    Integration with existing smart water meters and pressure sensors
•    Machine learning models for anomaly detection
•    Acoustic leak detection algorithm validation
•    GIS mapping integration for visual leak location
•    Priority scoring system (leak severity, population impact)
•    Mobile app for field inspection teams
Target Municipalities: Cities with existing smart meter infrastructure or undergoing water supply modernization.
 

Track 4: Citizen Safety & Surveillance
Challenge Statement: Develop a privacy-preserving video analytics solution that detects security anomalies and alerts local police control rooms instantly, without storing personally identifiable information.
Key Requirements:
•    Real-time video analytics across 100+ concurrent camera feeds
•    Anomaly detection: crowd formation, violence, accidents, abandoned objects, unauthorized area entry
•    Privacy preservation: no facial recognition storage, pose-estimation only
•    Integration with existing police command and control systems
•    Alert prioritization and false-positive reduction
•    Compliance with IT Act 2000 and draft Personal Data Protection Bill
Target Municipalities: Tier-1 cities with Safe City Mission implementations

800 + Participants registered
20 Finalist solutions exhibited
4 Problem Tracks Solved