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Smart India Hackathon 2018: Can you hack these problems India faces? Take the challenge now
While the top 17 problem statements for the upcoming Hackathon have been exclusively released to Hindustan Times, the official release has been scheduled on Monday, November 6.
The ‘Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2018’ is set to begin its feat into major problem-solving, as the problem statements will be declared officially on Monday, November 6. The second edition of SIH 18 is a joint venture by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), Persistent Systems and i4c, which was launched at College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP) on October 16.
Detecting vehicles which are overspeeding to minimise accidents and water surveillance to check the content of chemicals in water bodies, are systems which will soon become reality.
These two solutions to major problems of road safety and water pollution respectively, have reached close to completion after they were proposed by a bunch of students at Smart India Hackathon 2017. These solutions have been scheduled by the concerned ministries to be implemented. A total of 55 solutions were approved by 16 ministries for implementation, out of which 53 solutions are under development.
On the other hand, the Smart India Hackathon 2018 problem statements range from prediction of drought in a protected areas, sensor-based waste management and segregation, optimised energy utilisation at railway departments to reduce energy wastage to even geo-mapping of disable-friendly locations across Maharashtra. While the top 17 problem statements have been exclusively released to Hindustan Times, the official release has been scheduled on Monday, November 6.
This year, the Hackathon is bigger encompassing the innovative engineering minds across the nation. Unlike last year, this year it has been divided into two editions- the software edition which is a 36-hour software product development competition and the hardware edition wherein teams stationed in select nodal centres will be competing for five days to build hardware solutions. Key outcomes from this workshop would be then considered for further research scale-up and implementation.
Dr Abhay Jere, secretary of the organising committee, Smart India Hackathon 2018, said, “Smart India Hackathon is nothing short of a digital movement that collectively harnesses the creativity and skill of India’s technology students, towards developing a Digital India. We look forward to hosting a very successful Smart India Hackathon 2018, with tremendous student participation from across the country.”
In a press conference earlier this month, Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman of AICTE, had declared that the five centres established for the hardware edition would be equipped with hi-end machinery needed by the students to proceed their work. Institutes and colleges had been invited to provide the required materials to the students for the same.
SIH 2018 aims to challenge lakhs of technical students to come up with unique solutions to some of the most prominent issues faced in India. So far, over 40 Union ministries and departments that include railways, defence, civil aviation, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), department of atomic energy and more than 20 state governments have joined with initiative.
After the problem statements are released, the students will be given a time span of two months in which they have to come up with the idea of solution latest by December 31, 2017. Teams will have to upload their idea of solutions on MyGov Innovation.
Further, teams will be selected which will then execute their ideas at the main Hackathon which is likely to be scheduled at the end of February 2018. These teams will also be sent to the location of where they have sought the solution of.
This software and hardware edition will be held in over 30 centres and 5 centres respectively. To guide them in practical requirements and parameters of implementing the solutions, volunteers from the industry will be further provided to them as mentors.
So far, more than 40 ministries and 20 union territories have signed up to take the solutions provided by the students inconsideration depending on their merit. Almost one lakh students are expected to be part of this initiative this year.
At SIH 2017, about 10,000 engineering and management students pan-India had to produce digital solutions for such national problems in the form of mobile or computer applications and software programmes. Having drawn from 29 institutions, these students had to digitally address a total of 598 serious problems faced by Indian citizens on a daily basis. Almost 40,000 students had participated from 2,100 colleges. This year, the expectation is to go double with over one lakh students.
