Smart City Living Lab at IIITH announces winners of water challenge

Hyderabad, January 19, 2022: Smart City Living Lab at IIITH, in collaboration with the Government of Telangana and NIUM, announced the 3 winners of Water Challenge.
- Oceo Water Pvt Ltd - Detecting Water Leaks in Pipelines from Space (Jalashay): AI-enabled hydrological analytics produced from satellite photos will assist public utilities in precisely forecasting and detecting water leakages in water transmission networks without having to be physically present on the ground.
- IIITH - Smart Water Meter Solutions: A feasible option for expensive digital water metres is a low-cost retrofit for digitisation of analogue water metres.
- Kritsnam Technologies Pvt. Ltd - water flow meter: For bulk water supply, an inline ultrasonic flow metre is used. An excellent tool for monitoring water flow in pipelines in real time.
Contestants had to develop feasible solutions for cities’ in the areas of non-revenue water (water revenue lost due to unaccounted water, pipe-breakage or lost in tanks or in pilferage, etc.), water quality and quantity monitoring, wastewater industrial/sewerage etc and rain-water, water drains and open innovation.
Selected startups were given the opportunity to pitch to Smart city city Technology MNCs and Smart city officials during the two-month programme.
After multiple rounds and comprehensive screening, the panellists from academia (IIITH), government entities such as Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB), National Institute of Urban Management (NIUM), commercial consultants from World Resources Institute (WRI), and technology partners -European Business & Technology Center (EBTC) shortlisted three finalists.
The three winning startups displayed their solution at the smart campus at IIITH and will be given the opportunity to do a PoC in one of the districts in Telangana which will be supported by NIUM and HMDA.
“The Smart City Living Lab is an attempt to discover cutting edge innovations with smart city use cases, that can benefit from research and also the network of partners” Ramesh Loganathan, Professor- Co-Innovation and Head Research/Innovation Outreach
In December 2020, the Smart City Living Lab opened its doors. The Smart Campus is being built up, as well as the data lake for live sensor data. Two roundtable sessions with a few Smart City CEOs and other thought leaders have been organised. The Living Lab will assist startups recognised through the hurdles in improving their products and gaining market access.