More than 15,000 students and mentors are traveling to the 75 nodal centres to take part in the Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2022 grand finale. The participation of females in this year's Smart India hackathon is impressive with the male-to-female ratio of the participants being close to 1:5:1.
Smart India Hackathon hardware grand finale is scheduled from August 25 to 29 while the software grand finale is scheduled from August 25 to 26.
The SIH was started in the year 2017 with the vision of promoting the spirit of innovation in the country, especially among the youth. It aims to inculcate the culture of product innovation, problem-solving and out-of-the-box thinking among students.
Students from over 2,900 schools and 2,200 Higher Education Institutions will tackle 476 problem statements from across 53 Union Ministries in the finale.
The participating students will face problems like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of Temple inscriptions and translations in Devanagari Scripts, IoT-enabled risk monitoring system in Cold Supply Chain for perishable food items, and High-resolution 3D model of terrain, infrastructure and roads conditions in disaster struck areas, etc.
The winners in the Smart India Hackathon on each problem statement will be awarded a prize amount of ₹1 lakh. Under the student innovation, category three prizes of ₹1 lakh, ₹75,000, and ₹50,000 will be awarded to the winning team.
This year a new Smart India Hackathon - Junior category has also been introduced as a pilot for school students to build a culture of innovation and develop a problem-solving attitude at the school level.
PM Modi informed of his presence at the event via Twitter, he wrote, “At 8 PM this evening, I will address, via video conferencing, the Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon 2022. This is a programme I always look forward to, as it offers a glimpse of India's talented youngsters and showcases their remarkable problem-solving abilities. #SIH2022".
He further added, “#SIH2022 is special due to various reasons. The participation is extensive, be it in terms of age or geography, and so are the issues covered in the Hackathon. I would especially urge parents, teachers and children to join today's programme."
