Guwahati: How do you build a machine that can pluck only the tender “two leaves and a bud” from a tea bush, the way a skilled worker’s hands do? How do you capture gas trapped in a remote oil field with no pipeline connection, instead of letting it go to waste? And can a phone camera spot a pothole on a highway faster than a road inspector?These are among 50 unresolved problems Assam has thrown open to startups, companies, LLPs, individual innovators, teams, researchers, professionals and student teams from higher-education institutions across the country under the first North East Seva First Innovation Challenge (NESFIC) 2026, launched by CM Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday in Guwahati.“Through NESFIC, we want to bring young innovators to the same table as the government, where they can work on real problems and find solutions. We want to incentivise them and adopt successful solutions for the benefit of our people,” Sarma said at the launch.“For too long, the northeast was described in terms of its difficulties. We now see those same difficulties as opportunities. A flood solution built in Assam can serve the rest of India. A low-cost healthcare tool designed for remote areas can reach communities far beyond our region. Assam must not be only a place where technology is consumed, but a place where it is designed, tested, built and taken to the world,” he said.Sarma said many of Assam’s brightest young people had long felt they had to leave home to build their future. He said he wanted the next generation to have the choice to study, innovate, find their first customer and create jobs without leaving the state.He cited the example of a young engineer building a tool to help an Asha worker in a tea garden or char area identify health risks earlier, calling it grassroots problem-solving at its highest level.Sarma also pointed to a procurement barrier: while govt is the country’s largest buyer, startups often struggle to sell to it because of requirements around prior experience, turnover and large bank guarantees. NESFIC, he said, is designed to address that gap by making govt an innovators’ first customer.The 50 problem statements — 40 from govt, 10 from industry — read less like policy and more like a to-do list for Assam’s economy.One tea industry challenge seeks a low-cost, field-deployable machine that can selectively pluck “two leaves and a bud”, a task mechanisation has not solved for more than a century. A forestry challenge calls for more consistent monitoring of plantation growth and biomass to support carbon assessment. An agriculture challenge seeks AI-driven drones to detect pests and spray only affected patches. In the state’s energy belt, another problem statement seeks small-scale liquefaction technology to monetise stranded gas from fields without pipeline access.On infrastructure, a roads challenge seeks rapid detection and mapping of potholes and pavement damage so repairs can be prioritised in near real time. In health, a maternal-care challenge seeks earlier, more consistent tracking of pregnant women at risk of pregnancy-induced hypertension to trigger timely clinical attention.Two challenges target Guwahati’s recurrent flooding: the Science and Technology Department seeks a digital-twin-based early-warning system, while the housing and urban affairs department seeks automated detection of blocked culverts to address chronic waterlogging.“These are not abstract problems. They are part of everyday life,” Sarma said.
