Ather Energy Limited, one of India’s electric two-wheeler manufacturers, recently hosted ByteBattles 2.0, the second edition of its All-India Firmware Development Challenge. Following the inaugural edition, the theme for this year’s event was – safety in electric two-wheelers, and the event was sponsored by Qualcomm, Elektrobit, NXP and Infineon.
ByteBattles 2.0 was a firmware development hackathon centered around the Ather Software Development Kit (ASDK) and embedded systems. ASDK, developed in-house by Ather, is an Application Programming Interface (API) that enables engineers to build firmware for various vehicle systems at accelerated timelines. It integrates algorithms that support motor control, battery protection, regenerative braking, and more.
Held on April 5th and 6th, 2025 at Ather’s corporate office in Bengaluru, ByteBattles 2.0 brought together technical talent from across the country. The 30-hour event challenged participants to develop firmware and embedded systems solutions that improve vehicle safety. The event encouraged engineers, developers, and students to explore practical applications of sensors, microcontrollers, and advanced software solutions.
179 teams and 722 participants from universities and organisations such as Manipal, IIT-M, NIT Kozhikode, IISC, NIT Warangal, Zoom, Stellantis, Capgemini, Elektrobit, and Nosh Robotics registered for the challenge and went through a rigorous online preliminary round. ByteBattles 2.0 brought together skilled firmware developers, who were tasked to design safety solutions, including obstacle detection, terrain variation analysis, and vehicle function control, aimed at enhancing electric mobility safety. The 12 teams that made it to the qualifier round worked overnight on the firmware development challenge to navigate a specially designed track.
The event also featured a panel discussion with Girish Kamala (Senior Director- Automotive, Infineon), Sai Sridhar S (Managing Director, Elektrobit India), Vivek Subramaniam (Industry Solutions Lead for Automotive & Manufacturing, APAC, region, Google), Rajkumar Anantharaman (Senior Director of Software Engineering, NXP), Sarat Jampani (Director of Product Management, Qualcomm) and Swapnil Jain (CTO, Ather Energy Limited). The discussion focused on how integrated software and hardware can enhance ride safety in the Indian context, with emphasis on the importance of cloud computing in innovations in testing for safety and the need for a secure software backbone. Additionally, Sathya Ramasamy (Vice President, Engineering) from Qualcomm also made a presentation on two-wheeler ride safety.
Swapnil Jain, Co-founder & CTO, of Ather Energy Limited, said,
“Two-wheeler safety is as much about software as it is about hardware. ByteBattles 2.0 was about bringing together engineers and developers to experiment with ASDK and build real-world safety solutions. Vehicle firmware comes with unique constraints – it’s about solving for real-time performance, reliability, and efficiency. We believe the best way to drive innovation is to get hands-on, test ideas, and push boundaries, and it was great to see participants do exactly that.”
As a manufacturer of electric two-wheelers, Ather has also focused on introducing safety features in its electric scooters. With the aim of enhancing the safety of its scooters Ather has integrated various features such as multi-mode traction control in the 2025 Ather 450 and SkidControlTM in the Rizta to prevent the scooter from skidding on low friction surfaces, FallSafeTM – which cuts off power to the motor in case of a fall and Emergency Stop Signal – which rapidly flashes the tail lights to alert drivers behind in case of sudden braking. In addition, as part of its AtherStack 6 updates Ather also introduced the Live Location Sharing feature to enhance the safety of its riders.
With an allocated prize pool of ₹2,00,000, the hackathon served as a stage for participants to demonstrate their skills and fostered collaboration and knowledge exchange within the automotive software development community.
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