Bengaluru, September 03, 2026: Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, today announced the results of Gridlock Hackathon 2.0, an open challenge designed to crowdsource AI and machine learning solutions for Bengaluru’s traffic and urban mobility challenges.

Conducted in collaboration with Bengaluru Traffic Police, MapmyIndia, Arcadis, and HackerEarth, the hackathon encouraged participants to build solutions using anonymised, real-world datasets through the Bengaluru Traffic Police ASTraM (Actionable Intelligence for Sustainable Traffic Management) platform, designed and implemented by Arcadis. The platform enabled access to curated datasets for traffic analysis, AI and machine learning model development, and mobility innovation, while maintaining strict data privacy and security standards.

The initiative received 33,600 registrations from students, developers, and working professionals across the country. Participants developed solutions across themes including congestion prediction, traffic violation detection, movement-pattern analysis, parking intelligence, and smarter mobility decision-making. The hackathon followed a two-stage format, beginning with an online machine learning challenge and progressing to prototype development for shortlisted participants, resulting in 1,100+ prototypes addressing real-world urban mobility challenges.

The finale was held at Flipkart’s Bengaluru headquarters in the presence of Seemant Kumar Singh, IPS, Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru City, as Chief Guest; Karthik Reddy, IPS, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Bengaluru City, as Guest of Honour; and Flipkart leaders Ravi Iyer, CFO and Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships; Hemant Badri, Senior Vice President, Supply Chain, Customer Experience and Re-Commerce; and Vinay Vaidya, Senior Vice President, Technology for Supply Chain.

Rajneesh Kumar, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Flipkart Group, said, “Some of the most difficult challenges cities face cannot be solved by one organisation working alone. Partnerships between public institutions and technology companies can bring together the data, domain understanding and technology needed to look at these challenges differently. The response to this hackathon, with thousands of participants coming forward with ideas and solutions, shows the value of opening real-world problems to a much wider community of innovators. We are pleased to partner with Bengaluru Traffic Police on an initiative that can help explore new approaches to making the city’s traffic management more effective.”

The Winning Solutions
Selected from the prototypes developed through the challenge, the three winning solutions address distinct aspects of Bengaluru’s traffic and mobility ecosystem:

• Gridlock Oracle (First Place): Predicts how a single traffic incident cascades into city-wide congestion using a Hawkes Process model, giving the Traffic Police a live control-room dashboard to deploy resources proactively before gridlock spreads.
• PRAHAR — Predictive Resource Allocation for High-Impact Area Response (Second Place): A software-only predictive traffic intelligence platform built on real Bengaluru incident data, using multiple machine learning models to forecast congestion severity, junction risk, resolution time, and cascade effects. It recommends optimal deployment of officers, barricades, diversion routes, and dispatch stations.
• ParkSight — Parking-Induced Congestion Intelligence (Third Place): Analysed parking violation records to identify priority congestion and enforcement zones, incorporating hotspot detection, forecasting, patrol optimisation, and validation against ASTraM congestion data.

The three winning teams were felicitated by the Chief Guest in the presence of Bengaluru Traffic Police leadership, Flipkart executives, and representatives from the partner organisations. The winning team received ₹2,25,000, followed by ₹1,75,000 for second place and ₹1,00,000 for third place.

Gridlock Hackathon 2.0 builds on the inaugural 2017 edition, which drew close to 3,000 registrations. The winning solution from that edition proposed using real-time traffic data to enable smarter, dynamic traffic-signal switching. Testing at Bengaluru’s Silk Board Junction indicated a potential reduction of approximately 17% in wait times. The growth from that edition to this one – in scale, ambition, and the sophistication of solutions – is an encouraging sign of the momentum that such collaborations can build.

The School of Artificial Intelligence and Data Engineering (sAIDE), Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, today successfully inaugurated a prestigious One-Day Workshop on AI for Internal Security and Public Safety alongside a two-day Hackathon on AI for Social Good. These events, being organized as pre-summit activities for the India AI Impact Summit 2026, reflect the Nation’s commitment to building responsible, inclusive, and scalable Artificial Intelligence solutions.

DISTINGUISHED DIGNITARIES GRACE THE OCCASION

The inaugural session featured the inaugural address by Prof. Rajeev Ahuja, Director, IIT Ropar, who set the tone for this significant national initiative at the intersection of artificial intelligence and public welfare. He briefed the participants about the work that IIT Ropar in the field of AI.

Shri Ram Singh, Special Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, graced the occasion as Chief Guest, bringing invaluable insights from the law enforcement perspective on leveraging AI for internal security and public safety.

The event was honored by the presence of Shri Dinkar Gupta, Professor of Practice at sAIDE, IIT Ropar, and former Director General of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), as the Guest of Honour. His extensive experience in national security provided crucial perspectives on the role of AI in strengthening India’s security apparatus.

The inaugural session was also graced by distinguished industry leaders, including Shri Achutan Manohar, Principal Engineering Leader at Microsoft, and Shri Nitin Chugh, Senior Software Engineer at Google, who shared insights on cutting-edge AI developments and their applications in social good and security domains.

FOCUS ON AI FOR SECURITY AND SOCIAL IMPACT

Speaking at the inaugural session, Prof. Ahuja, emphasized that the workshop and hackathon represent a crucial step in harnessing artificial intelligence for national security and societal welfare. The initiatives align with India’s vision of becoming a global leader in responsible AI development and deployment.

The workshop features technical demonstrations on critical applications including Deep Fake Detection, Image Restoration, Anomaly Detection in Multimedia Surveillance, Drone Forensics, Voice Analytics, License Plate Recognition, and Secure Communications in Police Networks, among others. These demonstrations are being led by faculty members from IIT Ropar and showcase practical AI solutions that can be deployed for enhancing internal security infrastructure.

The concurrent hackathon is challenging participants to develop innovative AI solutions addressing real-world social problems, fostering a culture of technology-driven social entrepreneurship among India’s brightest young minds.

INDIAN ARMY EXHIBITION ADDS UNIQUE DIMENSION

Complementing the academic and technological focus of the event, the Indian Army has set up a special exhibition on the IIT Ropar campus, showcasing various equipment and technologies used by the armed forces. This exhibition is providing participants and attendees a unique opportunity to understand the practical applications of technology in defense and security operations, creating a bridge between academic innovation and real-world deployment.

ENTHUSIASTIC PARTICIPATION MARKS THE EVENT

The events have witnessed enthusiastic participation from students, researchers, faculty members, and professionals from across the country. The hackathon, spanning 30 hours from February 6-7, includes multiple evaluation checkpoints by industry experts and will culminate in a prize distribution and valedictory session on February 7.