Inauguration of Smart India Hackathon 2023 grand finale at Nodal Center CEC- CGC Landran

 

Landran : 33 teams consisting of more than 200-plus students including their mentors from across India, hailing from Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, New Delhi, Telangana and Karnataka converged at Nodal Center, Chandigarh Engineering College-Chandigarh Group of Colleges (CEC-CGC) Landran, to compete in the grand finale of Smart India Hackathon 2023 (SIH 2023) – software edition, which was inaugurated today, in campus at CGC. SIH 2023 has offered 231 problem statements received from 51 departments of 25 Ministries. 12,000+ participants are participating in this year’s national level, SIH 2023 grand finale.

The two day event will see participants code for 36 continuous hours. A total of 1,282 teams have been shortlisted this year for the grand finale to provide solutions on various themes including Space Technology, Smart Education, Disaster Management, Robotics and Drones, Heritage and Culture etc. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will address, and interact with the participants of Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon 2023 today evening via video conferencing.

The Chief Guest Mr Sachin Khosla, CEO & Founder, DigiMantra Labs, inaugurated day one of SIH 2023 at CEC-CGC Landran. He was accompanied by the Guest of Honour, Ms Ritika Singh, CEO & Founder, Kontent Factory, Dr. P.N. Hrisheekesha, Campus Director, CEC-CGC Landran, the Deans and Directors of the institution. The central inauguration was virtually done across all 47 nodal centers, by dignitaries including Prof. (Dr.) T.G. Sitharam, Chairman, AICTE and Dr. Abhay Jere, Vice Chairman, AICTE.

The 33 teams competing at CEC- CGC Landran have been assigned six Problem Statements (PS) by two ministries namely, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoC&I) and Ministry of Defence (MoD). The problem statements by the MoD require these young innovators to ideate effective, technological solutions to facilitate early detection and mitigation of snow avalanches in mountainous terrains; Devising novel AI or ML technology other than the already existing radar based ground-penetrating methods, to detect victims buried under snow avalanches expediting their rescue and chances of survival.

Another will see these student innovators attempting to develop lean module for reasoning about complexity in GPTs. The problem statements given by the MoC&I require the participants to develop a software for dubbing of videos from English to other Indian regional languages, as also a software that can translate resource material and other texts from English to other Indian regional languages. Another PS seeks solutions to developing interactive gaming software/mobile application on Intellectual Property Awareness for school students.

In line with the Prime Minister’s vision of youth-led development, SIH 2023 is a nationwide initiative, jointly organised by Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell, All India Council for Technical Education AICTE), and i4c. Doordarshan and Akashwani are the media partners of the Smart India Hackathon 2023. AWS and Hero are the official partners and Hack2Skill is the knowledge partner of the event.

The competition seeks to provide students a platform to solve the pressing problems of the government, ministries, departments, industries and other organizations. At each nodal center, an officer designated by the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell will monitor and preside over the proceeding during the entire duration of SIH grand finale. Mr. Deepak Kumar, Assistant Director DPIIT, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, is presiding over in this capacity for nodal center CEC-CGC Landran.

Each year SIH is conducted at various nodal centers, where selected student teams, industry representatives, design mentors, and evaluators travel to the assigned physical centers. The Premier and prominent higher educational institutes/ incubators are identified as nodal centers by the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell and All India Council for Technical Education in different cities. During the SIH grand finale, the student team works round the clock under the guidance of mentors and industry /Ministry representatives to produce the working solution for the selected problem statements.

SIH has been acclaimed as the world’s biggest open innovation model and it inculcates the culture of product innovation and problem-solving among students. SIH is conducted every year since 2017 in two formats i.e. SIH Software and SIH Hardware Editions for higher education students.

The scope of this competition has been widening with every passing year since its launch. Every year SIH is impacting lakhs of students and provides them a national platform to test their educational learnings in real-world problem-solving. It also aligns their interest toward Innovation and entrepreneurship.