New Delhi, Oct 19 (IANS): French 3Dexperience major Dassault Systemes on Monday announced a virtual hackathon in India to inspire students, startups, budding entrepreneurs and industrial companies to drive UAV and drone innovations.

The 10-days challenge titled 'Drone-a-thon: Propelling Sustainability' will seek ideas from young minds from October 19-31 who can become the future innovators and entrepreneurs in the Indian UAV sector.

The top 10 selected teams will be eligible for the challenge, from November 9-20 and experts from Dassault Systemes will work with them on their designs using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

"This will be followed by selection of the top three teams who will get an opportunity to present their design in Dassault Systemes' '3DEXPERIENCE Conference 2020 India' on November 25," the company said in a statement.

The challenge is to create UAV prototypes that are suitable for sectors like agriculture, infrastructure, healthcare, defense and logistics sectors.

Dassault Systemes has two competency centres in Andhra Pradesh and Bengaluru and is working towards bringing more such centres in Delhi, Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The company, which employs over 2,000 people in India, has R&D centres in Pune and Bengaluru.

The French 3D software major Dassault Systemes is not only bullish on investing big in India but is also expanding "high-value" research and development and innovation facilities in the country to create the workforce of the future.