New Delhi, March 31: Much awaited ‘Smart India Hackathon 2018- Software edition Grand Finale’ began at 28 centres across the country on Friday morning. Marking the mega event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid emphasis on innovation and gave the mantra of IPPP i.e. Innovate, Patent, Produce and Prosper.
While addressing the Grand Finale of the Smart India Hackathon via video conferencing said, that the mantra of IPPP i.e. Innovate, Patent, Produce and Prosper will lead our country towards faster development, for that we will have to innovate and turn our innovations in patents, making our production smoother and taking products speedily to the people will make them prosper. “But we must look for ‘need-based innovations’ not greed based innovations’” he added.
PM Modi further underlined the importance of Participative Governance to the participants of the Smart India Hackathon-2018. He also expressed his utmost hope in youngsters and urged then to contribute towards achieving the vision of New India. “I never miss any opportunity to interact with Young Professionals, Young CEO’s, Young Scientists and Young Bureaucrats,” PM Modi added.
During his address, PM Modi cited an example to highlight how Make in India has become a brand and is now being popular across the World. He told that four years ago there were only two manufacturing units of mobile phones in India whereas today around 120 factories are operating in the country.
The Prime Minister urged the participants to explore the possibility of Multiple Sector Hackathons like Health-Hackathon, Law-Hackathon, Architecture-Hackathon, Agriculture-Hackathon and Rural Hackathon. “We need innovative agriculturists, engineers, architects, doctors, lawyers, managers for these Hackathon. Such Hackathons will provide a platform to budding talents”, he emphasised.
PM Modi also expressed his happiness over the increase in the number of participants in the hackathon as compared to the hackathon last year. “I am told that most of the projects undertaking during the previous hackathon have been completed”, he added. PM Modi also interacted with the participants of Smart India Hackathon across various centres.
Notably, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar declared the Hackathon open at the Delhi centre of SIH 2018. In this world’s largest innovation under Digital India, about 1300 teams are participating to evolve software solutions to 340 problems given by the different Ministries/Departments and State Governments.
After inaugurating the mega event, Minister Prakash Javadekar said that 27 innovations made by students during the last year Smart India Hackathon are in the final stage and ready for deployment. He said that this year, with the participation of more students and more teams, 100 more innovations will come out this year.
He said that this is an open innovation challenge and students will also derive satisfaction for solving the real problems of the people and country by their innovations. Prakash Javadekar also said that this Smart India Hackathon 2018 is aimed to encourage the spirit of innovations among the student.
He also appealed to the students to come out with the solution for making examinations leak proof. He said that this problem is not a subject of this year’s Smart India Hackathon, but asked students to accept this challenge and work on the solution of full proof examination after this Smart India Hackathon-2018.
The Minister stated that though we are IT Super Power, though Google, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter etc are not invented in India although there are India brains behind all these innovations. He said that there are many such digital innovations which are wealth creators and India too needs to come out with such innovations.
Prakash Javadekar further said that SIH-2018 comprises of two competitions – Software Hackathon and Hardware Hackathon. The final round of Hardware Hackathon competition will be conducted in the month of June 2018.
The Chairperson of All India Council for Technical Education Prof. Anil D Sahasrabudhe, on this occasion, informed that Smart India Hackathon which began only last year has shown remarkable progress in terms of involvement of students and Ministries. In the last Hackathon, the number of students was 40,000 which have risen to 1 lakh this time.
At Jaipur centre, the hackathon was formally inaugurated by Member Secretary of AICTE Prof. A P Mittal and Senior Economic Advisor Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Rohit Kumar Parmarin presence of Judges, Faculty, Participants and students.
At Jaipur centre in JECRC, 50 teams comprising about 400 students from all over the country have started a coding process for evolving software solution to the 16 problems statements of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
This brainstorming exercise will continue for 36 hours. Based on their performance top 3 teams will be selected and they will be awarded by the Ministry of I& B. Winning team will get a prize of Rs. 1 lac, first runner-up Rs. 75,000 and second runner-up Rs. 50,000. Total prize money at all the 28 centres is Rs. 63 Lacs.
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is participating for the first time this year in Hackathon 2018. The problem statements of the Ministry are as follows;
Importantly, MHRD is also engaging with DST to ensure that selected teams from SIH2018 could be supported by Atal Innovation Mission (NITI Ayog), Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) as Start-ups and DST has responded very positively towards these efforts. The SIH will also be helpful in igniting spark at institute level Hackathons and final outcome will build funnel for Start-Up India Campaign which is one of the dream projects of Prime Minister.