CVR College, CMRCET are nodal centres in State for the two-day national event

Hundreds of students are putting their creative skills to test to find solutions to the pressing problems of government departments at the grand finale of Smart India Hackathon 2018 that took off at CVR College of Engineering, Ibrahimpatnam and CMR College of Engineering and Technology (CMRCET), the two nodal centres in Telangana.

The two-day national event being held in 28 colleges across the country is a unique initiative to identify new and disruptive digital technology innovations for solving challenges faced by our country. It was inaugurated through video conference by Union HRD Minister, Prakash Javadekar.

The hackathon went live at 8.25 a.m. and coding began at 8.30 a.m. on Friday and will end at 6 p.m. on Saturday. As per rules, three students from each team have to be present at the table at any point of time till the coding ends.

The students were allowed to move from the table only for breakfast, lunch, dinner and recreational activities while tea and snacks were served on the table.

“We are happy to be among the 28 colleges in the country to be hosting the finale,” said Ch. Gopal Reddy, secretary and correspondent, CMRCET, where 42 teams of six students each are competing to write the best code to the most pressing problem. The chief guest at the venue was Rama Devi Lanka, Officer on Special Duty, ITE & C, Telangana Government.

J. Satyanarayan, Chairman of UIDAI, who was the chief guest at CVR College, told students that “innovation is based on two things — doing things differently and doing different things”.

Discussing how digital identity (Aadhaar) has changed the country’s ecosystem, he appealed to the students to create new products and protocols that will address the country’s needs.

The Hackathon witnessed participation from 27 Central Ministries, Departments and 17 State Governments who sent more than 900 problem statements. After scrutiny, 408 problems were finally selected.

Of the 17,400-plus teams, 1,296 entries consisting of 8,000 students were selected for the grand finale. There are prizes to be won for different categories at each centre. The HRD Ministry is also engaging with DST to support with Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) as startups for selective teams.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Special Correspondent / Hyderabad – March 30th, 2018