Water challenge was launched by Smart City Living Lab, IIITH in association with Government of Telangana & NIUM together in Feb-March, 2021 timeframe to find viable solutions to the problems faced regarding water quality, supply and non-revenue water by the cities.
The panellists were from Academia (IIITH), Government bodies (MEITY, HMWSSB, NIUM), private consultants from WRI, and technology partners EBTC.
The topics of the challenge were :

- 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
-Open innovation

The panelists announced three winners after multiple rounds and thorough screening

- Oceo Water Pvt Ltd - Pipeline Water Leak Detection from Space (Jalashay): AI enabled hydrological analytics derived from Satellite images to help public utilities to forecast accurately and detect water leakages in water transmission networks without physically being present on the field.
- IIITH - Smart Water Meter Solutions: Low cost retrofit for digitisation of analog water meter, a viable replacement of expensive digital water meters.
- Kritsnam Technologies Pvt. Ltd - water flow meter: For bulk water supply, an inline ultrasonic flow metre is used. An excellent tool for monitoring water flows in pipelines in real-time.