About Themes / Sectors

• Sustainability & Circular Economy

• Single-Use Plastic Alternatives

• Climate-Tech & Green Innovation

• Waste Management & Waste-to-Wealth

• Sustainable Material Science

• Green Manufacturing

• Eco-Conscious Consumer Products

• Renewable Energy

• Rural Development & Social Impact

• Agritech & Food Innovation

• AI & Emerging Technologies

• FinTech & Digital Economy

• HealthTech & Bio Innovation

• EdTech & Skill Development

• Smart Cities & Urban Innovation

• ESG & Sustainable Business Solutions

• Logistics & Supply Chain Innovation

• Behaviour Change Innovation

• Open Innovation & Future Technologies

Problem Statements

1. Eliminating Single-Use Plastic

India generates massive amounts of single-use plastic waste every day, creating severe environmental, ecological, and public health challenges. Despite growing awareness and regulatory efforts, affordable, scalable, and commercially viable alternatives to single-use plastics remain limited across industries such as packaging, retail, food & beverage, logistics, healthcare, hospitality, and consumer products. There is an urgent need for innovative, sustainable, biodegradable, reusable, and circular solutions that can reduce plastic dependency without compromising affordability, usability, industrial scalability, or consumer convenience. The challenge seeks breakthrough products, materials, technologies, systems, and business models that can accelerate India’s transition toward a plastic-free and environmentally responsible future.

2. Rural Development & Social Impact

Rural India continues to face major challenges related to employment generation, market access, sustainability, infrastructure, digital inclusion, livelihood opportunities, waste management, agriculture efficiency, education, healthcare, and entrepreneurship development. While villages possess enormous human potential, local resources, and traditional knowledge systems, many innovative solutions fail to reach grassroots communities in scalable and sustainable ways. The challenge aims to identify impactful startups, technologies, and social innovation models that can strengthen rural economies, empower communities, generate sustainable livelihoods, improve quality of life, and create measurable social and economic impact while promoting inclusive and environmentally conscious development.

3. Innovation to Adapt Behaviour Change to Impact

Many environmental, social, and sustainability challenges persist not because of lack of technology, but because of limited behavioural adoption, awareness, and long-term engagement. Consumers, institutions, industries, and communities often struggle to transition toward responsible habits, sustainable lifestyles, waste segregation, conscious consumption, and environmentally friendly practices. The challenge seeks innovative solutions that can drive large-scale behavioural transformation through technology, design, psychology, gamification, education, digital platforms, community engagement, storytelling, incentive systems, and user-centric innovation. The goal is to create scalable models that inspire individuals and organizations to adopt sustainable actions that lead to measurable long-term environmental and social impact.