Chennai

TheCentre of Excellence for Road Safety at IIT Madras has organised its first-ever international hackathon.

The Centre introduced a dedicated BIMSTEC track, bringing together students, engineers, researchers, and problem-solvers from across India and the rest of the BIMSTEC region - Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, a release from IIT Madras on Friday said. This was envisaged as the biggest hackathon for the Global South. The hackathon positions IIT Madras to bring together governments, regional bodies and academic institutions around the shared, high-impact problem of road safety using AI as the common language.

Held under the aegis of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, the BIMSTEC AI Road Safety Hackathon 2026 was organised under the theme ‘AI in Road Safety’ on the campus recently, which is also the ‘AI Appreciation Day’.

The initiative traces back to the announcement made by the Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS), IIT Madras, at ‘India AI Impact Summit’ held in Delhi during February 2026.