IIT Roorkee hosted the grand finale of the Smart India Hackathon 2019, Software Edition recently. The nationwide event, which focuses on innovation and problem solving, offers students an opportunity to solve some of the major issues and challenges we face in our daily lives.
This initiative by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), in collaboration with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), saw 12 judges from industry and academia assessing the students in three rounds.
Seven extremely challenging problem statements were presented to the participants, pertaining to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Machine Learning (ML). The 28 participating teams, consisting of a total of approx. 196 students from various corners of India, were expected to come up with software-based industrial solutions to these problems. Each team comprised eight members, of which two were mentors. The contest that lasted for 36 hours, without a break, was assessed in two stages.
The chief guest at the event was Amit Kumar Sinha, IPS, director, Information Technology Development Agency, Government of Uttarakhand. Minister of Human Resources Development Prakash Javadekar declared the Hackathon open on March 2, via video conferencing. Later, there was also a live interaction session with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Having begun with just about 30,000 students, the event has grown to be a single platform that brings together several educational institutions, industrialists, government agencies, professionals and more than two lakh students/participants.
