By Utpal Borpujari / New Delhi
In a one-of-a-kind contest centred in Northeast India, 31teams from all over India will work non-stop for 36 hours to find solutions toproblems identified by the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region in itsdigital initiatives.
The teams will slog it out at the the Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon-2017, which will be hosted on April 1 & 2 by the Ministry at the Girijananda Chowdhury Institute of Management & Technology (GIMT), Guwahati, along with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) under Ministry of Human Resource Development.
The DONER Ministry has identified 11 problems, on which the 31 teams would build innovative digital solutions. The GIMT, Guwahati has been selected as the only nodal centre in the North East, among 26 other nodal centers across the country. Other nodalcentres will work on problems faced by various other ministries. The two-day event will witness 10,000-plus participants all over India, working non-stop for 36 hours to build products/solutions on the problems identified by different Ministries/ Departments across 26 locations in India.
The prizes under different categories include Rs.1,00,000 for the winner, Rs.75,000 for the first runner up and Rs.50,000 for the second runner up. The winners will also get a chance to be part of the NASSCOM’s 10,000 Startups programme, official sources said.Smart India Hackathon-2017 was launched on November 9, 2016 in New Delhi to harnesses creativity & expertise of students, builds funnel for ‘Startup India, Standup India’ campaign, crowd sources solutions for improving Governance and quality of life and gives opportunity to citizens to provide innovative solutions to India’s daunting problems.
Out of the 7,531 ideas received for 598 problems identified by 29 Ministries/ Departments, 1,266 ideas have been shortlisted for the Grand Finale. Smart India Hackathon-2017 will be the first massive scale hackathon initiative in India