Inauguration of Smart India Hackathon 2022 grand finale at KL Deemed-to-be University Vijayawada

Smart India Hackathon(SIH) is Government of India’s initiative headed by Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell to provide students a platform to solve the pressing problems of the government, ministries, departments, industries, and other organizations. Today, KL Deemed-to-be University hosted the finale of the 2-day grand event which was inaugurated by Mr. Ajay Reddy, Chairman, APSSDC (AP State Skill Development Corporation), Mrs. Lavanya, Joint Director AP Innovation Society and Mr. Manoj Dharap, Nodal Center Head (MIC & AICTE Representative) in the presence of Dr. G. Pardha Saradhi Varma, Vice Chancellor, Dr. A. Srinath, Dean Skill Development and other University Officials at the campus. This year Smart India Hackathon – Junior has also been introduced for students to build a culture of Innovation and problem-solving attitude at the school level.

The scope of the Smart India hackathon has been widening with every passing since its launch in 2017. The increased enthusiasm among participating students and problem statement provider organizations could be seen in their growing participation over the years. 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.

Smart India Hackathon 2022 hardware grand finale is scheduled from 25th August to 29th August 2022 and the Smart India Hackathon 2022 software grand finale is scheduled from 25thAugust to 26th August 2022. Smart India hackathon has witnessed huge participation from Ministries, Departments, PSUs, and Private organizations in providing problem statements. SIH 2022 has offered 476 problem statements received from 62 organizations. 2033 winner teams of campus level hackathons organized under Smart India Hackathon 2022, comprising of more than 15,000 students are participating in this year’s SIH grand finale at national level. These teams have travelled to the assigned nodal center and will work on these problem statements during grand finale of SIH 2022.

As part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations, the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has identified 75 higher educational institutes/incubators as Smart India Hackathon nodal centers to host the participant of SIH and facilitate an environment to conduct the Smart India hackathon in its well defined and established format. 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.

Smart India Hackathon 2020 is jointly organized by Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell, All India Council for Technical Education, Persistent Systems, and i4c. Doordarshan and All India Radio are the media partners of the Smart India Hackathon 2022. Shell, and AWS are the sponsoring partners of the Smart India Hackathon 2022.

Each year Smart India Hackathon 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.

For the said purpose, KL Deemed-to-be University was selected as one of the nodal centers to facilitate the Smart India Hackathon Software edition. 30 teams, having 179 students are competing against 7 Problem statements from 2 organizations. KL Deemed-to-be University is hosting problem statements given by Ministry of Dairy and Ministry of Mines. Each Problem statement has a winning amount of Rs 1 lakh. Under the student innovation category three prizes of Rs. 1 lakh, Rs. 75000, and Rs. 50000 will be provided to the winning teams.