The University of Chicago and the Urban Development Department of the Government of Karnataka have launched the Bengaluru Innovation Challenge—an effort to improve air and water quality by crowdsourcing inventive ideas from citizens, civic leaders, academics, corporations, and other institutions across India.

The Challenge winners have received funding support of up to Rs. 1.5 crore over two years to implement and test their ideas in the field, with guidance and input from the Government of Karnataka and leading faculty at the University of Chicago. If successful, these ideas could become policy solutions the government could implement at a large scale, and may provide an important model for other cities to follow.

The Challenge is a project of the Tata Centre for Development at UChicago and the Urban Development Department of the Government of Karnataka, in partnership with the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago’s India team (EPIC-India) and UChicago Energy and Environment Lab.