In a major boost to his Digital India initiative, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to address over 10,000 students, via video conferencing, at the 'Smart India Hackathon'.
The grand finale of the Smart India Hackathon kicked off at 8am on 1 April and will end at 8pm on 2 April.
An estimated 10,000 programmers are expected to participate in the 36-hour event finale which is being held at 26 locations in the country. The participating students will be required to produce digital solutions to 598 problems that have been identified and posted by 29 central government departments. The problems include issues like geo-fencing of airports, online toll collection, smart traffic management, cyber attacks and smart drones to make the airspace safer.
A First Of Its Kind Hackathon
A total of 7,531 teams, of approximately 42,000 students, responded with solutions to the problems from which 1,266 teams of 10,000 participants from 28 states were shortlisted for the finale. The Maximum interest was shown in solving road and transport problems with 84 teams out of the 674 in this sector making it to the finals.
The hackathon, a first-of-its kind initiative by the HRD Ministry, is aimed at promoting innovation and out-of-the-box thinking among young minds.
For the preparations of the finale, online training was given to students by approximately 2110 mentors appointed for the purpose. During the finale, the selected groups will be locked-in for 36 hours continuously and complete digital solutions for the problem statements through programming to create computer software or a mobile app.A Ministry Official
The software created will be evaluated by judges drawn from the respective ministry and industry experts and the best solutions will be awarded with cash prizes of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000 for the top three teams respectively.
The awarded software will also be used by the concerned ministry or department for improving their governance systems, if necessary, with suitable upgrade. The prize winners will be connected to form a "Community of Innovative Minds".
Union Minister for Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar tweeted:
Congress leader Milind Deora tweeted:
(With inputs from PTI)
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