GovTech & Smart City Collaboration
How a 1st-place hackathon win turned into an official collaboration with Indore Smart City Development Limited (ISCDL) — building AI and GIS systems for real urban governance use cases.
The story
It started as a hackathon project. As part of Team Smart City Sentinels, we built an AI and GIS-based solution for illegal construction monitoring — a real problem for urban planning teams who can't manually track construction activity across an entire city.
The project won 1st position at the Indore Tech Hackathon 2025, taking home a ₹4 Lakh prize.
That result led to something bigger than a hackathon trophy: continued collaboration with Indore Smart City Development Limited (ISCDL), focused on building scalable AI + GIS systems to support intelligent urban planning, monitoring, and decision-making — and an official Letter of Intent (LOI) to take the work further.
Government engagement
The solution was presented directly to senior district officials, aligning the technical approach with real-world urban governance needs.
Officials involved
Shri Shivam Verma (IAS)
Indore District Collector
Shri Arth Jain (IAS)
CEO, Indore Smart City Development Limited (ISCDL)
Indore District Administration & ISCDL
Shri Shivam Verma (IAS), District Collector · Shri Arth Jain (IAS), ISCDL CEO
Press coverage
Indore Edition — 10 Feb 2026
Covered for the team's work addressing illegal construction monitoring under Smart City use cases. As Team Smart City Sentinels, the team secured 1st position at the Indore Tech Hackathon 2025, winning ₹4 Lakhs and signing an official MoU as part of the Smart City initiative.
Areas of contribution
Turning raw drone footage into usable monitoring data
GIS-driven insight for planning decisions
Putting spatial data in front of officials in a usable format
Infrastructure built to handle city-scale geospatial datasets
Continuous data flow instead of periodic manual checks
Automating parts of the analysis and reporting process
Where it stands
From hackathon prototype to a government-backed Smart City collaboration — currently working under the issued LOI with ISCDL, building out the AI + GIS systems discussed with district officials.