ELI Creator Challenge

How to enter

There is no registration form and no sign-up. Four steps:

1. CreateAn original video, reel, Short or meme that explains ELI, or shows how ELI helps a local business in Vijayawada.
2. Post it publiclyOn Instagram, Facebook or YouTube. The post must stay public until the 3-day correction window after the announcement has closed.
3. Tag ELIInstagram @eli_explorelocalindia · Facebook ELI Explore Local India · YouTube @ELIExploreLocalIndia. These are our only official accounts.
4. Use #ELICreatorChallengeIn your caption. Both the tag and the hashtag are required — they are how we find your entry.

Prizes — ₹1,00,000 across 11 winners

Overall creator awards

Category awards

How entries are judged

Every entry is scored out of 100 by a panel of three judges — three members of the ELI team, named on this page before judging begins — scoring independently and blind to your follower count. Scores are averaged.

Who can enter

This contest is open only to Vijayawada, and to anyone from Vijayawada whatever their age. To enter you must live in, work in, or study in Vijayawada. Entries from outside this area will not be considered, whatever their content.

Under 18? You can enter, as long as you meet the minimum age of the platform you post on. A parent or guardian must know about and agree to your entry — they accept these rules for you, and if you win, the prize is paid to them on your behalf.

Your entry must feature or relate to a real local business, place or service in Vijayawada.

What counts as Vijayawada. Eligibility is decided by PIN code: 520001–520015, plus 521108 (Ramavarappadu, Enikepadu), 521137 (Poranki), 521139 (Penamaluru), 521212 (Nunna) and 521225 (Gollapudi). No other PIN code qualifies. If you prove your connection with a college ID or employment letter, the PIN code of the college or employer counts.

Employees, contractors and immediate family members of ELII & T Private Limited, and anyone involved in judging, are not eligible.

Key dates

Official rules

1. OrganiserThe ELI Creator Challenge ("the Contest") is organised by ELII & T Private Limited, CIN U62090AP2025PTC122272, registered office at Nuzvid, Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh 521201 ("ELI", "we", "us"). Entering the Contest means you accept these rules in full.
2. EligibilityOpen only to individuals who live in, work in, or study in Vijayawada. Entries from outside this area will not be considered, whatever their content. Employees, contractors and immediate family members of ELII & T Private Limited, and anyone involved in judging, are not eligible. Your entry must feature or relate to a real local business, place or service in Vijayawada. Age. There is no age limit imposed by this Contest, but you must meet the minimum age of the platform you post on. An entrant under 18 must enter with the knowledge and consent of a parent or legal guardian, who accepts these rules on the entrant’s behalf, grants the content licence in the intellectual property clause, supplies the verification documents, and receives the prize on the minor’s behalf into an account in the guardian’s name. ELI will ask a provisional winner to confirm their age, and will require written guardian consent before paying any prize to an entrant under 18. What counts as Vijayawada. Eligibility is decided by postal PIN code. The accepted codes are 520001 to 520015 (Vijayawada city), and the adjoining urban codes 521108 (Ramavarappadu, Enikepadu), 521137 (Poranki), 521139 (Penamaluru), 521212 (Nunna) and 521225 (Gollapudi). No other PIN code qualifies. Where you prove your connection with a college ID or an employment letter, the PIN code of the college or employer’s own address is the one that counts. This list is published in advance and is not varied after entries open. Eligibility is verified only at the point of winning: before a prize is paid, a provisional winner must confirm their age and provide one document showing their Vijayawada connection — for example an address proof, a college ID, or an employment letter. A winner who cannot show that connection forfeits the prize, which passes to the next eligible creator. For the Best Emerging Creator award, "emerging" means fewer than 1,000 followers on the platform the entry was posted to, counted publicly by ELI on the day it first logs the entry, not at the close of entries — growth earned during the Contest never costs a creator this award. Where a creator has entered on more than one platform, the count for the entry being considered applies.
3. Entry periodEntries open 25 October 2026 and close 26 November 2026, 23:59 IST. Entries posted outside this window will not be considered. Entries posted from 25 October count, provided they meet these rules.
4. How to enter — no registration formThere is no sign-up and no entry form. To enter: (a) create an original video, reel, Short or meme that explains ELI, or shows how ELI helps a local business in Vijayawada; (b) post it publicly on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube; (c) tag ELI's official page in the post — Instagram @eli_explorelocalindia (instagram.com/eli_explorelocalindia), Facebook ELI Explore Local India (facebook.com/profile.php?id=61593804590982), or YouTube @ELIExploreLocalIndia (youtube.com/@ELIExploreLocalIndia); these are ELI's only official accounts for this Contest; and (d) use the hashtag #ELICreatorChallenge in the caption. Both the tag and the hashtag are required. Entry is free; no purchase or payment of any kind is required.
5. Finding entries, and the limits of thatELI monitors tags, mentions and the hashtag on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube daily during the entry period. ELI cannot guarantee that every entry will be discovered. Posts set to private or restricted, or made from an account that blocks ELI, will not be seen. A post that becomes private or is deleted before the correction window closes is withdrawn from the Contest. Entrants who want certainty may also send the post link by direct message to ELI's official page. A direct message is a discovery aid only. It does not replace the tag or the hashtag, and an entry missing either of those is not eligible however it reaches ELI.
6. Timing of entriesThe public post timestamp shown by the platform determines whether an entry falls inside the entry period. Editing a caption after the deadline does not change the post timestamp and does not make a late entry eligible.
7. One award per entrantYou may submit more than one entry, but may win only one prize in total across all categories. Where the same creator would place in more than one category, they receive the higher-value award and the other passes to the next eligible creator on that category's ranking.
8. Content requirementsEntries must be your own original work, created for this Contest. Entries must not contain content owned by others without permission, including music, footage and images; must not be defamatory, obscene, misleading or unlawful; must not misrepresent what ELI does or make claims about ELI's services or results that ELI has not published; and must not feature any identifiable person, or the name, premises or branding of a business, without their consent. Your post must remain public until the 3-day correction window after the announcement has closed. Where required by the platform or by law, disclose clearly that the post is a contest entry. AI. AI is a permitted tool: AI-assisted editing, captions, subtitles, music selection, and AI-generated visuals, backgrounds or animation are all allowed and need no disclosure. What is not allowed is deception — presenting AI-generated imagery as real footage of a real place or event, generating the likeness or voice of a real person without their consent, or presenting a fabricated review, testimonial or customer as genuine.
9. No award based on engagementNo prize in this Contest is awarded on the basis of likes, views, comments, shares, subscribers or follower count. These carry no points in judging and are not used as a tie-break. Entries are judged solely on the submitted content against the published scorecard.
10. Judging and tie-breaksEntries are first checked for eligibility and authenticity; those that fail are removed without scoring. Remaining entries are scored out of 100 by a panel of three judges, being three members of the ELI team named on the rules page before judging begins, scoring independently and blind to follower count, on: creativity and originality (30), clarity in explaining ELI (25), storytelling and presentation (20), relevance to Vijayawada and local businesses (15), and production quality (10). Scores are averaged. Conflicts. Before scoring, each judge declares any personal, family or professional relationship with an entrant. A judge who declares a relationship does not score that entrant’s entry. Every entry is scored by at least two judges; where recusals would leave fewer, ELI appoints a substitute judge so that entry is scored on the same basis as the rest. Declarations are recorded with the scores. The three overall awards go to the three highest total scores. Each named category is ranked separately among the entries that qualify for it, on the measure published here: Best Telugu Storytelling, Best Short Video or Reel, Best Emerging Creator and Most Original Concept are ranked on total score among qualifying entries; Best Creative Entry on the creativity and originality score; Best ELI App Explainer on the clarity score; Best Local Business Promotion on the Vijayawada relevance score; and Best Local Story on the storytelling and presentation score. So the Grand Champion is not automatically a category winner, and a creator may top a category without topping the overall table. A tie is broken in this order: higher creativity score; then higher clarity score; then higher Vijayawada relevance score; then the earlier public post timestamp shown by the platform. The decision of the panel is final, save that an entrant may, within 3 days of the announcement, report a factual error in eligibility or in the application of these rules; ELI will review and correct genuine errors before prizes are paid. Where a challenge is upheld, only the affected award is reopened; all other prizes are paid on schedule, and the affected award is paid within 14 days of the corrected result being published.
11. Prizes and paymentThe total prize pool is ₹1,00,000 across 11 winners, as published above. Prizes are paid by bank transfer to an account in the winner's own name — or, for a winner under 18, in their verified parent or guardian's name — by 22 December 2026, on receipt of the required details. Prizes are not transferable and will not be exchanged for cash equivalents or anything else.
12. Contacting winnersBecause there is no registration form, ELI holds no contact details for entrants. Winners are contacted by direct message on the account that posted the winning entry, and are announced publicly on ELI's pages. A winner must reply with the details needed for verification and payment within 7 days of first contact. A winner who cannot be reached, or who does not reply within that period, forfeits the prize, which passes to the next eligible creator. Keep direct messages open on the account you enter from.
13. TaxesAdvertised prize amounts are gross and are subject to any deduction required by law. Winners are responsible for any tax arising on their prize. Where tax deducted at source applies under Indian law, ELI will deduct it before payment and the winner must provide a valid PAN.
14. DisqualificationELI may disqualify an entry or entrant, at any stage, for any of the following reasons and no others, and will give the entrant its reason in writing where it can reach them: failure to meet the eligibility rules; any breach of the content requirements, including the rules on AI and on the use of content owned by others; purchased, automated or otherwise inauthentic views, likes, followers or engagement; copied or plagiarised content; content created before the Contest and resubmitted; use of a business's name, premises or branding without the owner's consent; multiple accounts used by one person; or any attempt to mislead the panel. Where a prize has already been paid, ELI may require its return only in cases of fraud, material breach of these rules, or payment made in error, and will set out its reasons in writing.
15. Intellectual propertyYou keep ownership of your entry. By entering — or, where the entrant is under 18, by their parent or legal guardian consenting to the entry — you grant ELII & T Private Limited a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence for 24 months from the date of entry to use, reproduce, edit, publish and display your entry, and your name and handle, in any medium, including paid advertising, for the purpose of promoting ELI. ELI will credit the creator wherever the format reasonably allows. Any use beyond 24 months requires fresh permission. You confirm you hold the rights needed to grant this licence for the footage, images and original audio in your entry. Music. A track taken from Instagram’s or YouTube’s own music library is licensed for your post on that platform only. Such tracks are permitted in entries and are excluded from this licence, and ELI will not reuse the entry in paid advertising, or on any platform other than the one it was posted to, unless that audio is first replaced. Use original audio, or music you hold a commercial licence for, if you want your entry to be reusable in full. ELI is not obliged to use any entry.
16. Personal dataYou do not have to give us anything to enter. There is no registration form. We do keep a record of each entry — your public handle, the link to your post, the date it was posted, and the judges’ scores. That is personal data under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and we hold it only to run and settle this Contest. Age proof, Vijayawada proof, PAN and bank details are collected only from provisional winners, solely to verify eligibility and pay prizes. For every entrant, including one who is under 18, the only information ELI records at entry is what the entrant has already made public on their own post — handle, post link, date — together with the judges’ scores. ELI does not know an entrant’s age at that stage and asks for nothing. Verifiable consent from a parent or legal guardian is obtained before ELI collects any further personal data from an entrant under 18 — verification documents, PAN or bank details — and before that entrant’s name is published as a winner. ELI does not use a child’s personal data for behavioural advertising. A guardian may ask ELI to withdraw a minor’s entry at any time before the announcement. Data is processed in accordance with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and ELI's privacy policy at eli.business/privacy. Winners' names and handles will be published when results are announced. Entry records and winner verification data are retained for 12 months after the Contest closes and then deleted, except where tax or company law requires longer. You may request access, correction or deletion by contacting us; withdrawing consent before prizes are paid will mean forfeiting the prize.
17. PlatformsThis Contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by or associated with Instagram, Meta, Facebook, YouTube or Google. Entrants release those platforms from all liability in connection with the Contest. Entrants must comply with the terms and promotion policies of the platform on which they post, and must not use repetitive commenting, spam tagging or any other inauthentic engagement tactic.
18. Changes and cancellationELI may amend these rules, extend the entry period, or cancel the Contest where reasonably necessary, including for reasons outside our control. No amendment will be applied retrospectively in a way that disadvantages an entry already submitted. Material changes will be published promptly on this page. Where the Contest is cancelled after entries have been received, ELI will publish its reasons.
19. LiabilityELI is not liable for entries that are lost, delayed, corrupted, not received or not discovered, for platform failures, or for any loss arising from participation, except where liability cannot be excluded under Indian law. Nothing in these rules excludes liability for fraud.
20. Governing lawThese rules are governed by the laws of India. The courts at Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from the Contest.
21. Contact and grievancesQuestions and complaints: [email protected]. Grievance officer: Trinath Sadhu, Founder & CEO, contactable at [email protected]. We aim to acknowledge grievances within 24 hours and resolve them within 15 days.