New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be addressing the finalists of the Smart India Hackathon 2022 scheduled to start from August 25. Launched in 2017 by the Ministry of Education and the All India Council of Technical Education, this is the 5th edition of the Smart India Hackathon.
This year the event will be based on the celebration of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav. The hackathon will be held in 75 zonal centers across the country. The participation which, in the maiden edition, was 7531 teams constituting 8 students of higher education institutions from across the country has gone to 29634 teams this year.
For the Smart India Hackathon, ministries of the central government, as well as state government departments, give a chance to students to solve their problems. Problem papers are given to the participants who develop software or hardware solutions for the assigned problem areas in the allotted time period of 72 hours. The prize money for 1st 2nd and 3rd position has been fixed at 1 Lakh, 75 thousand and 50 thousand respectively.
The minister of state for Education, Dr Subhash Sarkar informed that around 15,000 students will be traveling across the country to participate in the world's largest hackathon to solve 476 problems. The prize money has been fixed for each problem paper which means around 5 crores will be spent on the distribution of prize money to the students this year.
"The winners of hackathon are not only getting good job offers from multiple companies but many of them later go ahead with their own startups and become job providers rather than being just job seekers. One more enthusiastic thing is the participation of girl students. This year also the participation of girl students is more than boys and the ratio between them is 1.5:1," said the minister.
So far the AICTE has supported 90 winner teams of the Smart India Hackathon with 10 Lakh rupees each and 700 are already in the incubation process. "Smart India Hackathons have played an important role in inculcating the culture of product innovation, problem-solving, and out-of-the-box thinking among youth" said Sarkar. Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan will inaugurate the mega hackathon on the 25th of August and the event will conclude on August 29.
