India is preparing for the fourth edition of the Smart India Hackathon (SIH), where students will compete to develop the best digital products that can solve problems we face in our daily lives. This edition of SIH initiative envisages involving more than two lakh students with around 60,000 ideas from more than 2500 institutions against 530+ problem statements provided by 120+ organizations from across India. There is prize money announced of INR 1 lakh for successfully solving each problem statement.
The hackathon event is a digital product development competition, where challenges and problems are posed to technology students and lovers for innovative solutions. The event is a nationwide initiative to provide the participants a platform to solve some of the pressing problems we face in our daily lives, and thus inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mindset of problem solving. SIH is the world’s biggest Hackathon and Open Innovation Model that is successful. The event is an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD), Government of India. In the event, technology students across India compete creatively to solve problems of Ministries, Departments, and Industries to solve problems and offer technical solutions. These students come from across the country from various institutes of national importance, and AICTE/UGC approved institutions.
In SIH 2020, the fourth edition, the students would have the opportunity to work on challenges faced within various Ministries, Departments, Industries, PSUs and NGOs to create world class solutions for some of the top organizations including industries in the world, thus helping the Private sector hire the best minds from across the nation.
This national level hackathon has the potential to facilitate in:
- Harnessing creativity & expertise of students
- Sparking institute-level hackathons
- Building funnel for 'Startup India' campaign
- Crowdsourcing solutions for improving governance and quality of life
- Providing an opportunity for citizens to provide innovative solutions to India's daunting problems
The first three editions SIH2017, SIH2018 and SIH2019 proved to be extremely successful in promoting innovation, out-of-the-box thinking in young minds, especially engineering students from across India. The last edition of the hackathon saw over 5 million students from various colleges compete for the top prize at 65+ locations.
SIH 2020 would provide 45+ hours of online training programs on various topics to all technology students, to be delivered by the best industry experts & coaches. Certificates of completion of training will be delivered to each successful participant.
SIH 2020 proposes to serve as a platform to get innovative solutions to one’s problems in cost effective ways and a great opportunity to be a part of the Nation Building Opportunity to brand one’s company. The participation in the event would also facilitate National Recognition and visibility for one’s company across all premier institutions in India. At the same time, talented youngsters from all over the country offer out-of-the-box solutions to the problems, that is, the fest provides an opportunity to work with some of the best talents in the country.
The theme for the fourth edition is Agriculture & Rural Development, Clean Water, Robotics & Drones, Healthcare & Biomedical devices, Renewable energy, Security & Surveillance, Smart Communication, Smart Vehicles, Food Processing, and Waste Management. The participants need to register under any one category out of the four, that is, (1) problem statement creator, (2) college team or student team leader, (3) design mentor, (4) evaluator or judge. Registration under problem statement creator can be done till 31 October 2019 while registration under the college team or the student team leader would open once the registration closes for the problem statement creator.
The tentative date for SIH 2020 hardware edition is 14-15 March 2020, and for software edition is 6-10 July 2020.
For Additional Info and Registration, visit https://www.sih.gov.in/about