Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon begins

*IIT Bhubaneswar hosts Software Edition: 26 teams with 180 participants geared up to find solutions for 5 problem statements

Bhubaneswar, 11th December 2024: The Grand Finale of the 7^th Edition of the Smart India Hackathon has been inaugurated today by Hon’ble Minister of Education, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan ji. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar, as one of the nodal agencies among 51 other institutes, joined the inaugural session virtually. It may be mentioned that the Smart India Hackathon is a flagship program being organized by the Innovation Cell of the Ministry of Education and AICTE under the aegis of the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India.

Before the nationwide inauguration, the programme was inaugurated locally at IIT Bhubaneswar by Prof. Shreepad Karmalkar, Director, IIT Bhubaneswar, in the presence of Shri Dipan Sahu, Assistant Innovation Director, MoE’s Innovation Cell, & AICTE; Prof. Rajesh Roshan Dash, Dean (Student Affairs), IIT Bhubaneswar; Shri Bamadev Acharya, Registrar, IIT Bhubaneswar and Dr. Soobhankar Pati, CEO, IIT Bhubaneswar Research and Entrepreneurship Park.

In his keynote address, Prof. Karmalkar stressed the importance of Communication, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking skills for career success in any domain. “Hackathons like this will help students to attain these skills, which would help them in their professional life and to solve real-life problems. By hosting this event, IIT Bhubaneswar reaffirms its commitment to promote collaboration among academia, industry, and government, and inculcate the entrepreneurial mindset.” He further mentioned that IIT Bhubaneswar is introducing its Bachelor and PhD students to ideas of entrepreneurship via various courses. This will enable the students to choose appropriate problems in their fields whose solutions will be amenable to commercialization. Generation of wealth via innovation is equally important as generation of knowledge to attain the goal of Viksit Bharat @2047.”

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Dipan Sahu highlighted the importance and the magnitude of the Smart India Hackathon 2024. “IIT Bhubaneswar is hosting the software edition of the Smart India Hackathon-2024. Twenty-six teams from across the country, with 180 participants, are participating in this mega event to showcase their prowess in coding and programming during the next 36 hours,” he informed. The main objective of the event is to trigger a creative mindset among the students and put them in a process of learning to find real-life problems, formulate teams, and come up with solutions with the help of technology, he added.

At the outset, Dr. Soobhankar Pati welcomed the guests and the participants. He gave an introduction about the Smart India Hackathon-2024. Prof. Rajesh Roshan Dash, in his address, encouraged the students to showcase their talents and explore innovative approaches to solving problems. Speaking on the occasion, Shri Bamadev Acharya emphasized the importance of research and innovation. He said that events like this will inspire the students to work towards fulfilling the objectives of ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ Initiatives.

It may be mentioned that the 26 teams, participating in the event at IIT Bhubaneswar will compete in a high-stakes challenge to develop innovative solutions for five critical problem statements. The problem statements are: ‘Innovating for Sustainability: Driving Smart Resource Conservation (Energy & Water) in Home Appliances (Refrigerators, Air Conditioners, Washing Machines, and Desert Air Coolers); Software solutions to identify users behind Telegram, WhatsApp, and Instagram-based drug trafficking; Software solution to identify the end receiver of a cryptocurrency transaction; Real-Time Disaster Information Aggregation Software; Prediction of Aluminium wire rod physical properties through AI, ML or any modern technique for better productivity and quality control’. They will be judged by Evaluators from NDRF, NCB, MoE-Innovation Cell, Godrej, NALCO