IIT Madras & Renault Nissan Technology & Business Centre India (RNTBCI) organize National Hackathon on Road Safety

CHENNAI : Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) partnered with Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India (RNTBCI) to host a National Hackathon called ‘HACK-CIDENTS’ recently to address road safety, a critical issue in India. It was a great opportunity for students from various colleges to make a real difference in people’s lives and help save lives on Indian roads.

The objective was to reduce the number of fatalities caused by road accidents in the country. The Hackathon invited teams of college students and young professionals with different skill sets to participate and contribute to the cause.

The Transportation Engineering Division in the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras, and the Centre for Innovation (CFI), IIT Madras, worked with RNTBCI on this CSR Initiative.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Gaurav Gupta, Director, Road Safety, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India, emphasized the importance of road safety, as road crashes are one of the leading causes of deaths, disabilities, and hospitalization in India, with over 1.5 lakh fatalities and over four lakh people injured on Indian roads every year.

The Ministry was seeking to partner with and support start-ups working in the field of road safety as start-ups can quickly develop and deploy new technologies, and are more agile and creative when it comes to finding new solutions for existing road safety problems, Shri Gaurav Gupta added.

The final round was conducted at IIT Madras on 22nd April 2023, where the top eight shortlisted teams presented their prototypes to the panel of esteemed judges and winners of the ‘HACK-CIDENTS’ were declared.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions were grabbed by:

1. Team Megami from Rungta College Of Engineering and Technology (RCET), Bhilai:

MEGAMI designed a device that will measure the shock wave produced by the collision of vehicles due to an accident and share the details such as location and time and victim detail to the help centers such as hospitals, and police stations and to the associated devices like mobile phones of the family members. Their vision is to report accidents immediately so that no life can ever be wasted due to delays caused by the emergency response team to reach the place.

2. Team Forage from Maharishi Markandeshwar Engineering College (MMEC), Mullana:

TEAM FORAGE is focusing on solving two major problems simultaneously: the pothole location alert and drowsiness detection & alerting system. They will develop a mobile application that is capable of interacting with the hardware and getting the GPS coordinates of the potholes and alerting the user via the hardware.

3. Team Bolt from IIT Madras

TEAM BOLT proposed to create an advanced collision avoidance system that lies at the intersection of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) systems and autonomous vehicles. The system will actively monitor traffic, and database of locations with high accident rates and will warn drivers when present in such locations of the possible situations and also enable enhanced assistance by the system. This system will be compatible and easily implementable on all four-wheelers

Prof. Raghunathan Rengaswamy, Dean (Global Engagement) at IIT Madras, thanked everyone and welcomed them to the final part of the event. He remarked that it was fitting for a computer science and AI person to be speaking at a transportation competition, as cars are increasingly becoming all about CS and AI.

Further, Shri Kapil Saratkar IPS, Additional Commissioner of Police, Traffic Chennai City Traffic Police, said that it was important to choosing one’s projects wisely and make sure they are feasible and considering the market and its needs. He praised everyone’s hard work and extended support for the selected teams.

Speaking on the occasion, PI of the project Prof. Gitakrishnan Ramadurai, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras, commended the teams on their hard work and innovation. He also thanked the mentors from RNTBCI who supported the teams at every stage. “The hackathon was a good example of how CSR projects could help make a difference in the real world,” he added

Mr. Harada Hirotake, Senior Vice President, RNTBCI spoke about the three components of safety – vehicle, environment, and behavior. While several advancements have happened in first two, the third part- behavior is also equally important. He noted the ideas presented at the Hackathon addressed this important aspect of behavior.

Mr. Hirotake and Prof B. Ravindran, Head Robert Bosch Centre for data science and AI, IIT Madras, flagged off MTC bus equipped with sensors to improve safety of buses.