Smart India Hackathon finalises 250 teams for grand finale
The grand finale of Smart India Hackathon (Hardware Edition), organised by the MHRD, is being held at eighteen different nodal centres for five days this week.
Hardware edition of the Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2019 has announced 250 teams that were finalised from a participant pool of over a thousand teams and more than one lakh technical students.
The five-day hackathon, being held from July 8 to July 12, was inaugurated on Monday. The first round of evaluation of the hackathon was kickstarted in March.
At present, the grand finale is underway at 18 different nodal centres including Bhartiya Skill Development University (BDSU) in Jaipur, the Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO) in Chandigarh, and the Dayananda Sagar University in Bangalore.
Participants can access facilities at their respective centres at all hours during the five-day period.
Picture Courtesy: Persistent Systems
The 250 finalist teams are going to compete in the final round, which has three categories of prize money - Complex (Rs 100,000), Complicated (Rs 75,000), and Simple (Rs 50,000).
Inauguration of Smart India Hackathon
Picture Courtesy: Smart India Hackathon
Speaking at the inauguration, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Minister of Human Resource Development (MHRD), told the participants,
“This is the largest platform for you to execute and experiment your ideas and create path-breaking tech solutions. Observing the vibrancy of the young demographic profile, I am sure we will achieve the ‘New India’ vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
The hackathon is a government initiative organised by the MHRD, All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Inter Institutional Inclusive Innovations Centre (i4c), and Persistent Systems.
The organisers claim that SIH 2019 is a unique open innovation model to identify new and disruptive technology innovations. They said,
“It's a non-stop product development competition, where problem statements are posed to technology students for innovative solutions. It can help harness creativity and expertise of students, spark institute-level hackathons and build a funnel for Startup India Campaign.”
Infographic credit: All India Council for Technical Education
The organisers also said that the firsts two editions of Smart India Hackathon in 2017 and 2018 were successful in promoting innovation and out-of-the-box thinking in young minds.
Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with finalist participants of SIH 2018 and said,
“Once the people decide to bring about change, everything is possible. But the biggest mistake governments make is to think that they alone can bring about change.”
(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)
