Inauguration of Smart India Hackathon 2023 grand finale at Nodal Centre – Manipal Institute of Technology

Manipal : Smart India Hackathon (SIH) is a nationwide initiative 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. 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. Last year in 2022, Smart India Hackathon – Junior was also introduced for school 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 year 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 2023 grand finale is scheduled from 19th December to 23rd December 2023. Smart India hackathon has witnessed huge participation from Ministries, departments, PSUs, and private organizations in providing problem statements. SIH 2023 has offered 231 problem statements received from 51 departments of 25 Ministries.

12000+ participants will participate in this year’s SIH grand finale at national level. These SIH teams along with 2500+ Mentors will travel to the assigned nodal center and will work on these problem statements during grand finale of SIH 2023.

The Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell and All India Council for Technical Education has identified 47 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.

Hon’ble Prime Minister of India has been interacting with the student participants of the Smart India Hackathon every year since its inception and PM is expected to interact with the students this year again on the evening of 19th December, 2023.

Smart India Hackathon 2023 is jointly organized by Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell, All India Council for Technical Education, 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 Smart India Hackathon 2023.

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, Manipal Institute of Technology was selected as one of the nodal center to facilitate the Smart India Hackathon – Hardware edition. Total 24 teams having 179 participants are competing against 4 Problem statements from 2 state governments and 1 ministry. Manipal Institute of Technology is hosting problem statements given by Government of Gujarat, Government of Kerala and Ministry of Ayush. Each Problem statement has a winning amount of Rs 1 lakh.

The program will be centrally inaugurated by the Ministry of Education at 9:00 AM on 19 December, 2023.