I’m Vikramadhitya M, one of the 2026 Edge Impulse Campus Ambassadors, and I recently had the opportunity to help lead CELESTAI’26 — a high-energy tech fest held at Dayananda Sagar University, Bengaluru. Over three packed days from April 23–25, the campus hosted students from multiple universities across India. From a hackathon to a high-octane Robotics Challenge, one thing was clear: Edge AI is no longer a concept, it is becoming the core of how students build. Here's my recap of the event.
Beyond the build: Edge AI is the new standard
In previous years of CELESTAI, student projects focused on simple mechanical designs or cloud-dependent software. This year, the shift towards intelligence at the edge was visible everywhere. From predictive maintenance projects to bots, the focus is no longer on whether AI can be used, but how effectively it can work without cloud-based inference. This reflects a growing emphasis on real-time, localized decision-making and the ability to optimize performance without relying on external connectivity.
EdgeIQ Hackathon
The EdgeIQ Hackathon was organized as an inclusive, large-scale innovation challenge designed to bridge the gap between ideas to prototypes.
The hackathon was conducted in two stages: an online ideation round, followed by an offline 24‑hour build round where students transformed their concepts into working prototypes. With participation from 450+ students representing universities across India, the event showcased remarkable diversity and creativity. To ensure accessibility and inclusivity, a set of predefined themes was set, from which participants selected and developed their innovative solutions.
- Predictive Intelligence at the Edge: Industrial IoT and anomaly detection
- Health Tech: Wearable vitals monitoring and rapid diagnostic tools
- Smart Cities & Infrastructure: Intelligent traffic and resource management
- Agriculture & Rural Environment: Soil health monitoring and crop protection
- AI for Sustainability: Energy optimization and waste management
- Open Innovation: General software and hardware breakthroughs
RoboEdge
RoboEdge was a high‑energy robotics competition that broke new ground by mandating an edge AI layer, pushing teams to showcase both hardware agility and algorithmic intelligence. With participants from across India, the event marked the country’s first robotics challenge to integrate edge AI as a core requirement, introducing students to the Arduino UNO Q, Ventuno Q, and the broader Qualcomm ecosystem. As a pilot initiative, RoboEdge highlighted how accessible platforms like Edge Impulse make it to deploy machine learning models rapidly at the edge, signaling the beginning of a new era for intelligent robotics in India.
Talks & Workshop
The Edge Impulse session provided students with a clear introduction to embedded machine learning, showcasing ecosystem integration with platforms such as Arduino and Qualcomm, while highlighting strong community support and educational initiatives.
Following the talk, participants joined a hands‑on workshop where they deployed models onto hardware such as the Arduino UNO Q and STM32, explored custom bricks in the Arduino App Lab, and experimented with optimization examples. The experience bridged theory and practice, impressed students with the speed and simplicity of deployment, and empowered them to begin innovating confidently with edge AI in real‑world applications.
Conclusion
CELESTAI’26 was more than just a tech fest; it felt like the start of a revolution in how students approach projects with edge AI. What was once just “AI” is now evolving into edge AI as the new standard, and the benefits were clear to everyone who has experienced it. Many initially saw Edge Impulse as just another platform, but quickly realized how intuitive it is, how fast models can be deployed, and how strong the developer ecosystem and community support truly are. With Qualcomm‑powered boards like the Arduino UNO Q showing how seamlessly hardware and intelligence can come together, participants left reassured that help is always available and innovation at the edge is within reach. For me personally, organizing and bringing the community together was incredible, and showing people firsthand how easy and powerful Edge Impulse is was the icing on the cake.