HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar inaugurates Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon 2017

Mumbai: The Grand Finale of the world’s biggest Hackathon, SMART INDIA HACKATHON 2017, by MHRD & AICTE was inaugurated at the hands of Shri Prakash Javadekar, Hon’ble Union Minister for Human Resource Development at Prin .L.N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research (WeSchool) along with Prof Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE, R Balasubramaniam, Nodal officer,Dept of Atomic Energy, Anand Deshpande, Co-Chairman, Smart India Hackathon 2017, Founder, Chairman & MD, Persistent Systems Ltd. , Dr Deepak Phatak, IIT(Mumbai) , Advocate Shri .S.K. Jain, Chairman, LMC, WeSchool & Managing Council, Shikshana Prasaraka Mandali, and Prof Dr Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool. Heads of other educational institutes in Mumbai were present for the inaugural ceremony. WeSchool is privileged to be among the only two b-schools, in addition to the 24 Engineering institutes to be chosen for hosting this nationwide initiative.

While addressing the young innovators at 26 centers across India through video conferencing from WeSchool campus, Shri Prakash Javadekar, Hon’ble Union Minister for HRD and the Executive Patron of the Hackathon said, “Our Government envisions the New India in young minds and budding talent who innovate to bring out sustainable profitability in the country. We believe innovation is the only resurgent way of progressing; small innovations can bring a big change in the economic and social development of India.”

He further added, “This is the first time that the Indian Government is organizing a Hackathon; it will encourage students to apply knowledge to real-life situations and find innovative solutions that will contribute positively in improving the quality of life.” He also announced, “Our Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will also be addressing the 10,000 students participating in the world’s largest hackathon via video conference today at 10:00pm.”

Prof Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, Smart India Hackathon 2017 and Chairman, AICTE, in his keynote address said, “We welcome the spirit of the youth who have come forward to solve problems of the nation. The HRD Ministry has played a pivotal role in taking this initiative forward. We are enthused by the students who applied for this Hackathon and had a tough time in shortlisting them. This is a golden moment for technical education in the country. I am confident that initiatives like these will seed the start-up movements for the nation.”

Advocate Shri.S.K. Jain, Chairman, LMC, WeSchool & Managing Council, Shikshana Prasaraka Mandali, in his welcome note said, “HRD Ministry’s initiative will give opportunities to all youngsters to channelize and present their innovative ideas that will strengthen the start-up movement. I convey my best wishes to all the participants and thank the ministry for choosing us as their partner.”

Encouraging the students, Prof Dr. Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool said, “At WeSchool, we have always emphasized on collaboration of ideas towards an attempt of solving key issues of the country as it brings about creative and sustainable solutions. We believe this hackathon will broaden our perspective and sensitize our younger generation to find solutions to real problems faced by the nation. This makes way for collaborative and cross disciplinary fabrication of brilliance and expertise that will strengthen individual’s capacity and in turn strengthen economic growth of our nation.”

He further added, “The outcome of such initiatives will create conscious business leaders of the future to meet the demands of Industry 4.0. We are privileged to have been associated with this initiative to create the model for harnessing the creativity and technical expertise of youth for direct benefit of our nation.”

The 32 teams consisting of 237 young geeks from institutes across India that have come together at WeSchool got down to business soon after the inaugural ceremony was over. During the 36 hr. nonstop hacking they will strive to find solutions to problem statements shared by Dept. of Atomic Energy like : Personal radiation dosage calculator, Digital Public Outreach Platform For Nuclear Energy, Personnel Identification System, Software for Face Recognition out of CCTV footages, Cyber Attacks Threat Map, Need of a software for Radiation dose monitoring, Blood bank App, Hospital Patient Information system on App (for Tata Memorial), a Cancer Staging and Management App (for Tata Memorial), GPS mapping of resources for Crisis management and others.

All the young innovators are looking forward to listening to PM Modi’s inspiring address at 10.00pm, that will outline his vision to build a funnel for ‘Start Up India’, ‘Stand Up India’, crowd source solutions for better governance and improved quality of life and providing innovative solutions to problems faced by Indian citizens with the involvement of youth.

With creativity, innovations and entrepreneurship ingrained in the institutes DNA, two teams of young MBAs from WeSchool under the mentorship of faculty experts like Prof Dr Suyash Bhat, Prof Dr Vaishali Patil, Prof Manmeet Barve and Prof Dr Pradeep Pendse have taken off to Bhopal and Thiruvananthapuram to work on challenges shared by other Ministries.

Team WeSamaksh consisting of Sanjivkumar Rai, Srishti Shukla, Ajinkya Hendre, Pragya Maheshwari, Mohit Salgaonkar and Parvez Ansari are working on the challenge ‘Tracking attendance of students and teachers in Indian schools in real time’ shared by National Commission for protection of child rights at Bhopal. While, Team AnWeShan consisting of Kalind Vadera, Sahil Gajria, Rahul Chaudhari, Tejashree Nirmal, Satej Akolkar, is headed to Thiruvananthapuram to work on the Problem ‘Payment process streamlining’ along with solution for last mile payment delivery mechanism for various schemes/programs such as PMAY and MNREGS shared by Dept. of Rural Development.

Prizes of Rupees One lakh (first), Rupees Seventy five thousand(second) and Fifty thousand (third) will be awarded to the winning institutes as they are judged by a team consisting of scientist-innovators from Dept. of Atomic energy and academic experts.