22nd Jan1

Smart India Hackathon 2020..

It seems to have become the trend of the season.. Wondering what we are talking about? We are referring to Hackathon events… Well, November end saw the Virtusa NeuralHack and now, we bring to you an update on the Internal Hackathon for Smart India Hackathon [SIH] 2020 that took place at our college on 20th January.
At KCG College of Technology, we are all about creating a culture of doing and giving the students a chance to meet, network & learn from their peers. The three things we do with reference to the same are,
  1. Mini-hackathons/code competitions like #Build2Learn & Women’s Coding Competitions (these are typically half-a-day to one day events)
  2. Hackathons hosted by KCG College of Technology – our own, as well as those sponsored by Corporates such as Nokia & Virtusa
  3. Participate in several external #hackathons like SIH and a recent one like #infyhackathon

What is this Smart India Hackathon?

Smart India Hackathon 2020 is a nationwide initiative from the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) where they provide college students a platform to solve some of the pressing problems we face in our daily life. This, in turn, encourages innovation, and the ability to think outside the box to solve problems/cases.  The last held SIH event saw over 5 million students from various colleges [across 65 locations] and they competed for the top prize.

The 1st edition of SIH was in 2017 and since then it has been growing in number and popularity, giving students the opportunity to expand their horizon while working on challenges faced within various departments, ministries,  industries, PSUs and NGOs. This is also a good place for Corporates and businesses to seek out the smartest and best minds from across the country and hire them.

It helps,

  1. a) Students  –
  • to work on and enhance their existing problem-solving skills
  • to think outside the box, become creative
  • to work as a team, drawing from each others’ strengths
  1. b) Businesses/Corporates/start-ups –
  • identify talent for future hires
  • seek solutions for problems they have been struggling with
  • gain insights to grow the business

For more information on SIH 2020, visit their website and their Facebook page

Round up – Internal Hackathon for Smart India Hackathon [SIH] 2020 

The event like every other requires quite a lot of prep work. Here too, the initial registration, assessment sessions began a good few weeks ahead. An initial round of evaluation of the problem statements and ideas and mentoring of the 52 teams took place on the 7th and 10th Jan. Mr. Dorai Thodla, our college mentor met all the teams and guided them accordingly for the event. It was only after the screening was the date of the main event finalized to be 20th January.

 The highlight of the event was that the participants were given the CISCO & DEVNET platforms to work on and come up with creative solutions to the problems assigned to them. We are grateful to these two companies for extending their support and the giveaways as well.

 The Internal Hackathon held at KCG College saw 43 teams participated on the day.  There was a Jury panel consisting of 6 members who were industry experts across fields. They were given the task of evaluating and assessing the ideas and prototypes presented by the participating teams. It was fascinating watching the judges talk to all the teams, spend time understanding their ideas, learning about how their thought process works and sharing their knowledge as well. They took their time with the 20 plus teams and spent over 4 hours in all…

 

 

And finally,  the shortlisted 7 teams (5 software and 2 hardware) were recommended by the Jury for the SIH 2020 participation. From here, the teams go on to  participate in the National SIH events held in April for Software and June for hardware. We wish them all the very best of luck ~!

 

Here are a few photographs from the event…