Challenges

Choose a challenge to understand the problem, expected outcomes and potential solution areas.

CHALLENGE 01
Sustainable Agriculture
Energy, Water & Productivity
Feeding a billion people cleanly, efficiently, and resiliently.

The challenge

The opportunity is to combine distributed renewable energy, precision irrigation, low-cost sensing and farmer-facing digital tools to improve productivity, affordability and climate resilience.

40%+

workforce

of India’s workforce is employed in agriculture

90%

freshwater withdrawals

are used for agriculture

15–20%

post-harvest losses

accross key crops and value chains

What should your solution achieve?

Reduce energy and water intensity

Cut energy and freshwater use per unit of agricultural output through smarter scheduling, precision techniques and efficient equipment.

Minimize post-harvest losses

Use low-cost sensing, controlled storage and logistics analytics to preserve produce from field to market.

Empower the smallholder

Deliver actionable, vernacular and affordable decision-support to farmers with limited literacy and connectivity.

Strengthen climate resilience

Help farming systems adapt to irregular rainfall, heat stress and soil degradation through data-driven interventions.

Your submission should include:• A detailed solution write-up explaining how the solution works, its key assumptions, and why it is suited to Indian smallholder conditions.• A system or architecture diagram showing the main components and the relevant data, energy, or money flows.• Supporting design artifacts such as UX wireframes or mockups, sensor or data-model designs, or process and service designs.• A software prototype or simulation is encouraged, but not mandatory. No physical hardware build is expected.• A quantified benefit, such as water or energy saved per hectare, reduction in post-harvest loss, or yield improvement, measured against a clearly stated baseline.• A deployment and scale-up plan covering target crops, geographies, farmer profiles, and unit economics.

The following solution areas are illustrative. Teams are encouraged to explore other relevant approaches.• Solar-powered precision irrigation using soil-moisture sensors and crop-growth models.• AI-based crop-health monitoring using low-cost cameras or satellite imagery.• Solar-powered farm-gate cold-chain and micro-storage solutions supported by logistics-optimisation software.• Vernacular advisory chatbots or voice interfaces that provide weather, input-cost, and market-price information.• Aggregation and cooperative platforms that help small farmers access bulk procurement, collective storage, or direct market linkages.

Indian agriculture employs more than 40% of the workforce and accounts for nearly 90% of freshwater withdrawals, yet the sector remains highly vulnerable to erratic monsoons, rising input costs, and post-harvest losses estimated at 15–20% of produce value.Farm power is dominated by heavily subsidised, inefficient electric and diesel pump sets. Irrigation scheduling is largely manual and water-wasteful, while smallholder farmers often lack real-time information about soil health, crop stress, or market prices.Climate change is intensifying these pressures. Shifting rainfall patterns, prolonged dry spells, and extreme heat events threaten agricultural yields precisely as demand continues to grow.At the same time, India’s renewable-energy expansion offers an important opportunity. Affordable distributed solar power could replace diesel, operate precision-irrigation systems, enable cold storage, and connect remote farms to digital services—provided that appropriate software, business models, and farmer-facing tools are developed.

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F&B Industrial Automation

Water

CHALLENGE 02
Smart Buildings
Energy Efficiency & Occupant Experience

Making every square metre smarter, greener, and more comfortable.

The challenge

The opportunity is to combine low-cost sensing, intelligent controls, building analytics and grid-responsive energy management to reduce energy waste, improve occupant wellbeing and give owners actionable visibility across India’s diverse building stock.

33%

of electricity consumption

comes from buildings.

Real-time

building performance data

is often unavailable

Peak hours

flexible building loads

can shift off-peak

What should your solution achieve?

Cut energy waste

Measurably reduce energy consumption in commercial or residential buildings without sacrificing comfort, productivity or safety.

Improve occupant experience

Enhance thermal comfort, indoor-air quality, lighting quality and overall wellbeing for building occupants.

Enable data-driven management

Give building managers and owners clear, actionable visibility into energy use, equipment performance and occupancy patterns.

Integrate with the grid

Shift flexible loads away from peak hours and enable demand-response participation where DISCOM programmes allow.

Your submission should include:A detailed solution write-up explaining the mechanism of action, key assumptions and fit with Indian building stock and climate zones.A system or architecture diagram showing sensors, software layers, data flows and integration points with building-management systems or DISCOMs.Supporting design artefacts such as UX dashboards or wireframes, data models, or retrofit and deployment schematics.A software prototype or simulation is encouraged, but not mandatory. No physical hardware build is expected.A quantified energy-saving estimate, measured in kWh or percentage reduction in building energy intensity against a clearly defined baseline, with comfort conditions preserved.A retrofit or deployment plan covering building typology, estimated cost, payback period and scalability across India’s climate zones.

The following solution areas are illustrative. Teams are encouraged to explore other relevant approaches.Occupancy-driven HVAC and lighting control using low-cost sensors and machine-learning-based scheduling, supported by a BMS or cloud dashboard for facility managers.A digital-twin or simulation platform that models a building’s thermal performance, benchmarks it against ECBC norms and recommends prioritised retrofits.Fault-detection and diagnostics software that monitors chillers, air-handling units and pumps to identify degradation early and support predictive maintenance.Solar self-consumption optimisation integrated with rooftop solar, battery storage and flexible building loads to maximise clean-energy use and reduce peak demand.A tenant-engagement and gamification platform that gives occupants clear, personalised information about energy use and potential savings.

Buildings account for roughly 33% of India’s total electricity consumption, and that share is rising steeply. Rapid urbanisation, expanding commercial floor space, higher incomes and a warmer climate are driving demand for cooling, lighting and plug loads at a pace that threatens to overwhelm distribution infrastructure and emissions budgets alike.Yet the vast majority of Indian commercial and residential buildings operate with little or no real-time data on energy use, occupancy or equipment health. HVAC systems are often oversized and poorly scheduled, lighting remains on during unoccupied hours, and building managers have limited visibility into where energy is being used or why bills are rising.For occupants, poor indoor-air quality, thermal discomfort and unreliable power can reduce productivity and wellbeing. India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency and Energy Conservation Building Code provide an ambitious regulatory framework, but compliance and optimisation remain inconsistent in practice.The gap between a code-compliant building and a genuinely smart, responsive building is where some of the greatest efficiency, comfort and operational gains can be achieved.

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Home Energy Management

Commercial Real Estate

Healthcare

Hotel

Retail

CHALLENGE 03
Grid Reliability
Renewable Intermittency

Making clean power dependable, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

The challenge

The opportunity is to create affordable, neighbourhood-scale flexibility tools that combine forecasting, smart load management, demand response, shared storage and local coordination to keep electricity dependable when renewable supply falls below demand.

2047

renewable generation

must scale significantly

Millions

of households and businesses

need dependable power

Feeder-level

flexibility solutions

can balance variability

What should your solution achieve?

Bridge intermittency gaps

Ensure reliable electricity access during periods when renewable-energy supply falls below demand.

Stay local and manageable

Create a solution that can be deployed and operated at neighbourhood or district level with minimal grid-level intervention.

Be genuinely affordable

Make the solution viable for low-income urban and peri-urban communities, not only for well-resourced users.

Support the DISCOM

Provide data, forecasting or demand-response signals that help distribution utilities manage feeder loads and reduce technical losses.

Your submission should include:A detailed solution write-up explaining how the solution works, its key assumptions and why it is suited to Indian distribution-grid conditions.A system or architecture diagram showing the principal components and the relevant data, energy or money flows between them.Supporting design artefacts such as UX wireframes or mockups, process and service designs, or data and model designs.A software prototype or simulation is encouraged, but not mandatory. No physical hardware build is expected.A measurable reliability improvement, such as a reduction in outage hours or increased supply availability during intermittency windows, measured against a defined baseline.An ownership, operations and maintenance model explaining who operates the solution locally, together with unit economics demonstrating affordability for low-income communities.

The following solution areas are illustrative. Teams are encouraged to explore other relevant approaches.Software and ownership models for community or shared energy storage, including second-life batteries, with fair-access, pricing and dispatch rules.Local microgrid or mini-grid control software with smart load management, demand response and prioritisation of critical loads.Peer-to-peer energy sharing, aggregation or cooperative ownership models that pool reliability across multiple users.Low-cost forecasting, control or scheduling tools that anticipate renewable-energy gaps and shift flexible loads accordingly.DISCOM-facing analytics dashboards that predict feeder stress, identify voltage violations and recommend local demand-response actions.

India’s clean-energy future depends on scaling renewable generation many times over by 2047. However, solar and wind generation are inherently intermittent: their output changes with clouds, nightfall and weather conditions.As the electricity system becomes greener, millions of households and small businesses could face unreliable electricity precisely when they have become increasingly dependent on it. The challenge is no longer only to generate clean power, but to make that power dependable around the clock.These reliability gaps are particularly damaging at the edges of the system, including low-income urban and peri-urban neighbourhoods where outages disrupt livelihoods, education, refrigeration and small enterprises. Expensive grid-scale improvements may take considerable time to reach these communities.Distribution-system operators and DISCOMs therefore need local, low-cost flexibility tools—including demand response, community storage and peer-to-peer coordination—that can absorb renewable variability at feeder level without requiring major capital investment in grid reinforcement.

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Power & Grid

CHALLENGE 04
Smart Manufacturing
Industrial Energy & Process Efficiency

Decarbonising the factory floor without compromising competitiveness.

The challenge

The opportunity is to bring affordable real-time energy monitoring, predictive maintenance and process optimisation to Indian SMEs, helping them reduce energy consumption and emissions without sacrificing throughput, product quality or competitiveness.

35–40%

of India’s energy

is consumed by industry

15–30%

of production costs

can come from energy

Real-time

energy monitoring

is missing in many SMEs

What should your solution achieve?

Reduce specific energy consumption

Cut energy use per unit of output across industrial processes without reducing throughput or product quality.

Enable real-time visibility

Give plant operators and managers actionable information about energy use, equipment health and process parameters through affordable, easy-to-deploy tools.

Support decarbonisation

Identify and quantify opportunities to reduce direct and indirect emissions, including fuel switching and renewable-energy integration.

Strengthen SME competitiveness

Deliver solutions that are economically viable for small and medium-sized manufacturers with limited capital and technical resources.

Your submission should include:A detailed solution write-up explaining the mechanism, key assumptions and fit with Indian SME manufacturing conditions.A system or architecture diagram showing sensors, edge or cloud software, data flows and integration with plant equipment or ERP systems.Supporting design artefacts such as UX dashboards or wireframes, data models, or process and deployment schematics.A software prototype or simulation is encouraged, but not mandatory. No physical hardware build is expected.A quantified improvement in specific energy consumption or emissions intensity against a clearly defined baseline, with production quality and throughput preserved.A deployment and business-model plan covering the target industrial segment, installation cost, expected payback period and scale-up pathway for the Indian SME market.

The following solution areas are illustrative. Teams are encouraged to explore other relevant approaches.An IoT-based energy-monitoring platform for SMEs using low-cost smart meters and sensors, with an edge-computing dashboard that identifies waste and recommends corrective actions.AI-driven predictive maintenance for motors, compressors, furnaces and other energy-intensive equipment, reducing unplanned downtime and improving operating schedules.Production-scheduling and load-shifting software that aligns energy-intensive operations with off-peak tariff periods and available renewable generation.A digital energy-audit tool that automatically maps energy flows, benchmarks performance against BEE norms and creates a prioritised retrofit roadmap.A carbon-accounting and reporting module aligned with the GHG Protocol and supply-chain disclosure requirements, enabling SMEs to respond to buyer sustainability requests.

Industry accounts for approximately 35–40% of India’s total energy consumption and is one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise. Small and medium-sized enterprises form the backbone of India’s manufacturing base, but many operate ageing equipment, manual process controls and virtually no real-time energy monitoring.Energy costs can represent 15–30% of total production costs for energy-intensive businesses such as foundries, textile mills, ceramics, chemicals, food processing facilities and brick kilns. Nevertheless, many plant managers have limited visibility into where energy is being lost or how production scheduling affects consumption.Industrial facilities also face increasing pressure from global buyers to demonstrate carbon transparency and measurable efficiency improvements. India’s Perform, Achieve and Trade scheme and the Bureau of Energy Efficiency establish energy-performance norms for large industries, but much of the SME segment remains outside this framework and receives limited support.The opportunity is to bring data-driven energy management, predictive maintenance and process optimisation to the factory floor, making Indian manufacturing leaner, cleaner and more competitive.

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Challenges

CHALLENGE 01
Sustainable Agriculture
Energy, Water & Productivity
Feeding a billion people cleanly, efficiently, and resiliently.

What should your solution achieve?

What your team should deliver

Ideas to get you started

Read the full problem context

CHALLENGE 02
Smart Buildings
Energy Efficiency & Occupant Experience

Making every square metre smarter, greener, and more comfortable.

What should your solution achieve?

What your team should deliver

Ideas to get you started

Read the full problem context

CHALLENGE 03
Grid Reliability
Renewable Intermittency

Making clean power dependable, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

What should your solution achieve?

What your team should deliver

Ideas to get you started

Read the full problem context

CHALLENGE 04
Smart Manufacturing
Industrial Energy & Process Efficiency

Decarbonising the factory floor without compromising competitiveness.

What should your solution achieve?

What your team should deliver

Ideas to get you started

Read the full problem context

Challenges

​CHALLENGE 01 Sustainable Agriculture Energy, Water & Productivity Feeding a billion people cleanly, efficiently, and resiliently.

What should your solution achieve?

What your team should deliver

Ideas to get you started

Read the full problem context

What your team should deliver

Ideas to get you started

Read the full problem context

What your team should deliver

Ideas to get you started

Read the full problem context

What your team should deliver

Ideas to get you started

Read the full problem context

CHALLENGE 01
Sustainable Agriculture
Energy, Water & Productivity
Feeding a billion people cleanly, efficiently, and resiliently.