IIT Madras to host hackathon with SISC

National hackathon SAMVEDAN 2021 will encourage participants to come up with solutions to India-specific problems of societal interest using IoT Sensor Board 'SPRESENSE™'. Prizes worth Rs 3 lakh will be awarded to the best teams.

Chennai:IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation (IITM-PTF) is collaborating with Sony India Software Centre Pvt. Ltd. (SISC) to conduct a national hackathon called ‘SAMVEDAN 2021 - Sensing Solutions for Bharat’ to inspire citizens to solve India-specific problems of societal interest using IoT Sensor Board.

This Grand Challenge Competition is based on the Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation’s SPRESENSE™ Board, which participants can use for this challenge. Registration has already commenced on July 1st, 2021 for this challenge, which is open to all Indian nationals residing in India.

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Calling upon Indians from all over the country to take part in this hackathon, Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, secretary of department of science and technology, government of India, said, “The future is all about a tight convergence of physical systems with communication, computing, information and data gathering, machine sensing, autonomous decisions and actions and control. Thus sensors of all sorts will play a vital role in the Cyber-Physical Systems.”

Prof. Sharma said, “The national mission on interdisciplinary cyber-physical systems aims to develop an ecosystem to solve problems of national importance. This grand challenge competition is an effective method to identify, nurture and commercialise solutions for them,” adding, "Winners become eligible for prize money as well as an entrepreneurial support scheme by IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation. The participation of academics as well as industry personnel is also welcome," he added.

Highlighting the unique aspects of ‘SAMVEDAN 2021,’ event coordinator Prof. V Kamakoti, department of computer science and engineering, IIT Madras, said, “IITM-PTF is committed not only in identifying innovative solutions and talent across the country in the area of sensor-based solutions, but also providing a platform to successful start-ups that could solve societal problems of national importance. SAMVEDAN is one of the platforms to enable this. IITM-PTF plans to offer Entrepreneur-In-Residence scholarship for the top team for a year which will enable them to nurture it into a start-up.”

Speaking about this collaboration with IIT Madras, Masayuki Toriumi, Managing Director, Sony India Software Centre Pvt Ltd said, “Sony is expanding into the Indian market in various fields, including not only electronics products such as televisions but also entertainment businesses such as movies and music.”

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Toriumi said, “SISC supports Sony's business in the area of software development, and we are very pleased to be able to contribute to India's problems and challenges by using Sony's leading-edge technology, India's excellent software engineering resources, and the ecosystem involving the public and private sectors. I hope that more and more people will take advantage of this unique opportunity to participate in the project and come up with innovative ideas that will represent Amazing India.”

A team with a maximum of three members can register for the grand challenge. The challenge will be held in three stages quarterfinals, semi-finals and finals. 75 ideas will be selected for the quarter-finals, and among them, 25 best ideas will be selected for the semi-finals.

There will be seven finalists with prizes for every finalist. Prizes worth Rs 3 lakh will be awarded to the best teams. Further, each quarterfinalist will be provided with a SPRESENSETM board free of cost by Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation through IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation.

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