MeitY, Smart Cities Mission & IIIT Hyderabad launches Smart City Startup Challenge

The move is aimed to support and scale startups that are involved in developing sustainable, inclusive and innovative solutions

Smart city living labs at the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Smart Cities Mission have launched a Smart City Startup Challenge. The move is aimed to support and scale startups that are involved in developing sustainable, inclusive, and innovative solutions for smart cities.

The Smart City Startup Challenge is a month-long program to provide opportunities to selected startups to pitch their innovative solutions to MNCs working in the smart city domain. Also, an equity-free grant of Rs 10 lakh will be given to the winner. Moreover, the winner will be featured in a smart city innovation listing shared with all smart city CEOs.

As per the norms of the challenge, any startups with solutions or products with smart city use cases can apply, especially those working in the technology domain with smart city use cases, market-ready products with or without customers (revenue is desirable), expertise in commercially deploying the solution and research with market-ready products. The deadline to apply for the challenge June 1, 2021.

With a cumulative effort of MeitY, Smart Cities Mission, and Government of Telangana, the Smart City Research Center was set up at IIIT Hyderabad. The research center includes a Living Lab, which is a setup with support from EBTC and Amsterdam Innovation Arena.