250 students in grand finale of Smart India Hackathon

Mangalore Today News Network

Udupi, March 3, 2019: The third Smart India Hackathon, a 36-hour non-stop exercise to find solution to problems, was inaugurated simultaneously at 48 nodal centres across the country by Union Minister for Human Resource Department Prakash Javadekar on March 2, Saturday.  He addressed the participants, nearly 11,000, through a live video broadcast.

Udupi Deputy Commissioner Hephsiba Rani Korlapati was the chief guest at the Hackathon organised at Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), MAHE, one among the 48 nodal centres.

Speaking on the occasion, Hephsiba said, “Your contribution to this country will make life better for our people. It will be wonderful if your ideas can be taken to the common man.”  She also invited students to witness the functioning of EVMS and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

MIT Director Srikanth Rao later told media persons that MIT was also keen to host the Hardware Hackathon being planned in June. “We will be happy to host that event too,” he added.

More than 250 students, representing 28 different educational institutions from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, West Bengal, Chandigarh and New Delhi, are participating in the grand finale of the third edition of Smart India Hackathon – Software Edition at NITK in Surathkal.

The students, during their 36-hour long hackathon, are  working on 28 problem statements of the healthcare industry, mainly of NCORD Healthsystems and PD Hinduja Hospital and MRC, deriving solutions for the problem statements.

There is also an interesting requirement of tracking the number of people using washrooms on the hospital floors so that the cleaning could be carried out after a certain number of people had utilised the washroom.

NITK Director Uma Maheshwar Rao, presiding over the programme, informed the participants that a single thought could make a revolution on NITK campus as the country is becoming a hub of healthcare.

Infosys Mangalore Development Centre Head Vasudev R Kamath said that the role of technology is to achieve something difficult. Smart India Hackathon Co-Chairman Anand Deshpande, addressing the participants via video conferencing, said that the previous hackathon was also successful. For this hackathon, the industries and private players are involved with their problem statements, he said.

The organisers said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will connect with all the nodal centres for live interaction with the participants via video conferencing method, the NITK sources added. 

After the inaugural session, the hackathon session started on the NITK premises and their 36 hours have been scheduled into many slots with brief training sessions.

The sessions also included a half-an-hour recreational activity at midnight and a Yoga session on the following morning. Each team presented its work with the allotted seven minutes before a panel of three judges on Saturday night.