MOHALI : The Union Ministry of Education is all set to organize the grand finale of Smart India Hackathon-2022, one of the world’s biggest open innovation models aimed at inculcating the culture of product innovation and problem-solving among students, at Chandigarh University Gharuan from 25th August to 26th August 2022, informed Dr R S Bawa, Pro-Chancellor, Chandigarh University.
Conducted since 2017, the Smart India Hackathon (SIH) is a nationwide initiative by the 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.
Interacting with the media persons, Dr Bawa said that in this year’s edition, the SIH has offered 476 problem statements received from 62 organizations. More than 15000 students from 2033 winner teams of campus level hackathons organized under SIH-2022, will participate in this year’s SIH grand finale at national level, at various assigned nodal centers, where they will work on 6 problem statements including To develop in integrated and robust online platform for the researchers providing the information and relevant details about national/international research grants; Integrated annual academic calendar for all the Indian universities; AICTE Event/Activity management system; Prediction of Admission & Jobs in Engineering & Technology with respect to demographic locations; Online integrated platform for projects taken up by the students of various universities/colleges; Attractiveness and User Friendliness of AICTE Website, during the grand finale of SIH-2022.
“As a part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations, Chandigarh University is one of the 75 higher educational institutes and incubators identified by the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell and All India Council for Technical Education as Smart India Hackathon nodal centers to host the participants of SIH and facilitate an environment to conduct the Smart India Hackathon in its well defined and established format,” Dr Bawa said.
“At Chandigarh University, a total of 30 teams from different parts of the country having 180 participants are competing against 6 problem statements from AICTE. 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,” he said.
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. The SIH-2022 hardware grand finale is scheduled from 25th August to 29th August 2022 and the SIH-2022 software grand finale is scheduled from 25th August to 26th August 2022. The program will be centrally inaugurated by the Ministry of Education at 9:00 AM on 25th August 2022. SIH is conducted every year since 2017 in two formats i.e. SIH Software and SIH Hardware Editions for higher education students. This year Smart India Hackathon – Junior has also been introduced for school students to build a culture of Innovation and problem-solving attitude at the school level.
Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi 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 25th August 2022.
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 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.
