Greater Noida: Gautam Buddha varsity hosts Smart India hackathon 2024

Smart India Hackathon (SIH) is a nationwide initiative by Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell to provide students a platform to solve the pressing problems of the government, ministries, departments, industries and other organizations

State run Gautam Buddha University (GBU) hosted the internal phase of the 12-hour long Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2024 which witnessed participation from 224 students wherein they were tasked with solving real-world problems provided by the education ministry, the administration said.

The 12-hour Hackathon was held at the Central Computer Centre of Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida. (HT Archive)

The 12-hour Hackathon was held at the Central Computer Centre of Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida.

Smart India Hackathon (SIH) is a nationwide initiative by Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell to provide students a platform to solve the pressing problems of the government, ministries, departments, industries and other organizations. It has been acclaimed as the world’s biggest open innovation model and inculcates the culture of product innovation and problem-solving among students.

The event was supervised by Dr Raju Pal, SPOC, Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2024 and Dr Vinay Litoriya, Coordinator, SIH 2024. The event was organised by student volunteers from the Hackfed community -- Anurag, Ujjwal, Kartik, Ashish, Sameer, Abhishek, and Prashant.

“GBU successfully conducted the internal phase of Smart India Hackathon 2024, in which 38 teams registered. Out of the total 224 participants, 152 were men and 72 were women. The participants worked on problem statements published by various government organisations, including the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, AICTE, Gujarat government, ministry of defence, ministry of social justice and empowerment, ministry of culture, Delhi government, National Technical Research Organisation, and ministry of communications,” Litoria said.

“Students were enthusiastic... they wanted to understand the problems the society is facing and bridge the gap. The government is also working on a similar line and this hackathon is being to understand the real life problems,” he added.

The registered teams received rigorous guidance from senior technical experts to improve their innovative ideas during the hackathon.

After the evaluation, 25 teams were selected for potential nomination to SIH 2024, while five teams were wait-listed, university administration said.