More than 10,000 participants competed for 36 hours in 4th edition of SIH 2020, which was held completely online, to develop world-class digital solutions for the Central Government Ministries/State Govts. and various industries.
More than 1000 evaluators joined the mammoth process of mentoring and evaluation for three days.
Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi addressed the World’s largest ever online Hackathon in the World and interacted with students.
Three-day Grand Finale of fourth edition (Software) of Smart India Hackathon – 2020 concluded on August 4, 2020
The Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon (SIH) -2020 (Software Edition) was inaugurated by Hon’ble Minister of Human Resource Development (now Minister of Education), Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on 1st August, 2020. Hon’ble Minister of State for HRD, Shri Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre and Sh. Amit Khare, Secretary HE, MHRD were also present on the occasion. During the Inauguration, Shri. Pokhriyal said, “SIH provides confidence to the students to stand up like a warrior and decide on the path they want to take.” He also said that ideas coming up during the SIH will be implemented on the ground level.
The Hackathon was held virtually at 40 nodal centres across the country, from 1st to 4th August, 2020 and was the largest hackathon of its kind ever organised in the World. Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi had also addressed the students during the Grand Finale through video conference on 01st Aug 2020. He lauded the youth for their efforts to innovate new applications along with ways to create an Atma Nirbhar Bharat.
Considering the COVID pandemic, the Grand Finale was organized virtually for the first time in the history of SIH, that connected all the participants throughout the Nation together over a specially-built advanced SIH platform. Nearly 10,000 members including the delegates, jurors, students, nodal center committee and organizers were associated with SIH 2020 including 1080 teams and 705 mentors (6 participants per team, about 6480 participants) who competed non-stop for 36 hours and designed the solutions.
70 organizations participated in the Hackathon this year by generating various problem statement for the Hackathon. Central ministries/ Departments such as Indian Space Research Organization, Bureau of Police Research & Development, Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Women and Child Development etc, along with State Ministries/Departments, such as Government of Sikkim, Government of Goa, Government of Bihar etc., and other private industries, such as the Amazon Web services, Yamaha motor Services etc were partners in the SIH 2020.
Total of 243 problem statements, based on 11 themes were worked upon during this edition of SIH. Some of the problem statements seen this time included Tracking & Tracing of Fake News, UAVs for Disaster Identification and alerting System, Network connectivity in remote areas, designing innovative methods to prevent blackmailing and frauds against women specific cases and many others. Several Problem statements were also associated with “Atma-Nirbhar Bharat”, including “E –Marketplace wherein Tribal persons can promote, market and sell tribal produce such as handicrafts, arts, paintings, minor forest products etc on line with provision of delivery and e-payment and promotional discounts” as given by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
ISRO was the largest contributor of problem statements in SIH 2020. The forthcoming solutions by the students to some of the problem statements during the hackathon was welcomed by the Associate Director, Space Application Centre, ISRO who also announced an additional prize money of Rs 25,000 to three teams. ISRO Nodal Officer, Shri Nilesh Desai expressed his happiness at the efforts, perseverance and quality of the work carried out by the participating teams covering vide variety of themes likes remote sensing data processing using AI/ML technique, geomatics, smart communication and navigation.
1126 domain experts and evaluators from Ministries, Institutes and Industries mentored and evaluated all the 1080 teams participating in the Grand Finale. The 36-hour hackathon had prize money for each problem statement worth Rs. 1,00,000/-. 220 winning teams were announced during the Valedictory session organized at 40 nodal centers on 4th August, 2020 simultaneously. Out of these, 12 teams had developed projects associated with “Student Innovation”; these included themes such as Sustainable Environment, Sports and Fitness, Smart Vehicles, Smart Textiles, Travel and Tourism, Agriculture and Rural Development, Smart Communication, Smart Cities, Finance, Energy / Renewable Energy, Smart Education, Security & Surveillance, Healthcare & Biomedical Devices and Miscellaneous.
During this hackathon, students had the opportunity to work on challenges faced within the Government ministries, private sector organizations and create world-class solutions for some of the top companies in the world, thus helping these sectors hire the best minds from across the nation.
