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PM Modi addresses students at Hackathon finale, hails ‘revolutionary’ innovations in country
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed thousands of students who participated in the Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon 2022, and said the country has progressed “rapidly” and “revolutions” across various sectors are happening
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday addressed thousands of students who participated in the Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon 2022, and said the country has progressed “rapidly” and “revolutions” across various sectors are happening.
“On August 15 I declared from the Red Fort that an aspirational society is being born in India. It will act as driving force for numerous new initiatives,” the PM added.
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“In the In the last 7-8 years, the country is progressing rapidly and revolutions are happening one after the other. There’ve been an infrastructure revolution, health sector revolution, digital revolution, technology revolution, health, defence & talent revolution,” Modi said.
He said that new opportunities are being created for the youth in every sector. “Drone technology, digital institutions, virtual solutions, from service to manufacturing there are many opportunities,” the PM stressed.
He also mentioned the government’s efforts to make optical fibre reach all parts of the country, as the 5G roll-out continues. “We will soon launch 6G as well. Even in the gaming sector, the government is working to create opportunities,” he said.
India’s innovation is the most competitive, sustainable, accessible, secure and implementable at a larger scale than the world, Modi said.
Innovations in the sector of medicine, technology, artificial intelligence, online gaming applications, for dementia patients, and translation were conveyed to the Prime Minister, who encouraged the students to build further and make the country self-reliant in these sectors.
“It has been the constant endeavour of the Prime Minister to promote a spirit of innovation in the country, especially among the youth. With this vision in mind, Smart India Hackathon (SIH) was started in the year 2017,” the government said in a statement. “SIH is a nationwide initiative to provide students a platform to solve the pressing problems of society, organisations, and government. It aims to inculcate the culture of product innovation, problem-solving and out-of-the-box thinking among students.”
The number of teams registered for SIH has seen a four-fold growth from around 7500 in the first edition to about 29,600 in the ongoing fifth edition, the statement added. “This year more than 15,000 students and mentors are travelling to the 75 nodal centres to take part in the SIH 2022 grand finale,” the statement said.
It added that students from over 2,900 schools and 2,200 Higher Education Institutions will tackle 476 problem statements from across 53 Union Ministries in the finale, including Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of Temple inscriptions and translations in Devanagari Scripts, IoT-enabled risk monitoring system in Cold Supply Chain for perishable food items, high-resolution 3D modelling of terrain, infrastructure and roads conditions in disaster struck areas, etc.
“This year, Smart India Hackathon - Junior has also been introduced as a pilot for school students to build a culture of innovation and develop problem-solving attitude at the school level,” the statement said.
