IIT ROORKEE HOSTED GRAND FINALE OF “SMART INDIA HACKATHON 2019 Hardware Edition”

12th July 2019, Roorkee:The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee was a nodal center for the Grand Finale of the Smart India Hackathon 2019 Hardware Edition. The five-day hackathon was held from July 8 to July 12. It was organized by MHRD innovation cell (MIC) and hosted at the Tinkering Lab, IIT Roorkee.

The Hackathon had received more than 1,20,000 student registrations with submission of more than 20000 ideas. Pan-India, hackathon involved 2235 institutions, 198 problem statements with more than 40 industries and 9 union ministries and departments. After two rounds of evaluation, 2000 participants from 250 teams of 178 different colleges, including IITs and NITs reached the Grand Finale. This edition of hackathon included problems based on food technology, agriculture & rural development, waste management, renewable energy, clean water, healthcare & biomedical devices, robotics & drones, smart communication, security & surveillance, smart textiles, sustainable environment, and smart cities areas.

In SIH hardware edition 2019, IIT Roorkee has hosted three themes and two industry problems that involved 16 finalist teams from all over India. During the grand finale, the participating teams worked on development of smart solutions for day to day problems. In addition, participating teams developed world-class solutions for the challenges faced by organizations in the private sector. This also fulfilled one of the objectives of event that is to harness creativity and expertise of participating teams and build a funnel for Startup India Campaign.

The inaugural ceremony of the grand finale at IIT Roorkee was inaugurated by the Chief Guest Mr. Mukesh Goyal, Associate VP & Plant-Head, Haridwar & Vadodara Plant, Hero MotoCorp Ltd and Chairman, CII, State Council and Vice Chairman, QCFI.

The event was also inaugurated through video conferencing by Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, Hon’ble Minister of HRD and Mr. Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre, Hon’ble Minister of State, HRD. In addition, event was addressed by Mr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, AS (TE) & CVO, MHRD; Dr. Anand Deshpande, Chairman and MD, Persistent Systems Ltd; Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman AICTE; Dr Abhay Jere, Chief Innovation Officer, MIC; Prof. Ajit K. Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee; Prof M. Parida, Deputy Director; Prof. Manish Shrikhande, Dean SRIC; Prof. Akshay Dvivedi, Coordinator and SPOC, SIH-2019. Mrs. Smita Kelkar, Nodal Head, MIC, Mr. Sumanpreet Singh, Director, CII, Uttarakhand, officials from MHRD and designers were present during the inaugural session.

In the Grand finale of Smart India Hackathon 2019 Hardware Edition, depending upon nature of problem, cash prizes for selected ideas and solutions were given to participating teams. For simple problems Rs. 50000, for complicated problems Rs. 75000 and for more complex problems Rs. 1 lac was awarded.

The winners were announced in a valedictory session on 12thof July. The winner for the theme smart cities were Facile Fabricators which included participants Ramesh D, Subasree S R, Sree Sudan L, Guna Selvi A, Dhayanandan C T and Vignesh S ; First runner up for theme security and surveillance was Team Shaurya which included participants Raj Gandhi, Aniket Jadhav, Mayur Shinde Jadhav, Shivraj Jadhav, Bhagyashree Sarode Gharat and Khushboo Singh Joshi .And the second runner up for theme security and surveillance was Safety Giants which included participants Pooja Kadam, Divya Pardeshi, Mitesh Patil, Bharat Khairanar, Suraj Paliwal and Rupesh Sonawane.

“We are extremely happy with the outcome of this edition of the Hackathon. The students have proved themselves yet again and come up with some creative solutions to issues plaguing society. We hope to have more successful editions of SIH in the future as well” said Prof. Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee.

The entire event was captured and telecasted live at the National Level. Teams had yoga sessions every morning and cultural events including Zumba every evening. The event also witnessed leadership talks by Prf. G.J Chakarapani, Prof. Ravi Kumar, Mrs. Smita Kelkar and Prof. KD Gupta. Tinkering lab, IIT Roorkee provided dedicated work space with tailored layout for encouraging creative thinking to each participating team. Teams were also provided expert technical help with 24X7 availability of all equipment’s and services. Each team was provided with hardware and electronic components with round the clock refreshments and other facilities. All departments and centers contributed for the smooth conduct of the event.