The Smart India Hackathon 2017 coding fest, organised jointly by NASSCOM, NIC, the MHRD, and more is now officially underway at 29 locations in India involving more than 10,000 engineering students from across the country. Now, USP of this year’s edition is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address all the participants whilst inspiring them to lay emphasis on the flagship Digital India project.
PM Narendra Modi will address the engineering students via video conferencing at 10PM IST on April 1. The Smart India Hackathon, that went live at 8 AM IST on April 1 goes on till 8 PM IST on April 2.
This Hackathon aims at finding solutions for as many as 600 issues identified by the government ministries. Many of these are related to social sectors as well.
Prize money for the top three winning teams, upon selection of the most innovative solutions, is Rs 1,00,000, Rs 75,000, and Rs 50,000 respectively. The best solutions (software) would also be implemented real-time by the relevant ministries.
For the uninitiated, below are some vital stats from the Smart India Hackathon 2017:
- More than 10,000 participants from institutes across 26 states
- 7531 proposals (potential solutions/Ideas) submitted
- PM Narendra Modi’s address
- Strong government backing for the ideas.