NEW DELHI: The Union Human Resources Development Ministry has invited governance-related problem statements from various industries, semi-government and public-sector organizations, NGOs and local bodies whose solutions can be developed by technical students from across the country.
In Smart India Hackathon- 2020, the ministry is hoping to receive problem statements from more than 200 public and private organisations.
SIH, a key initiative by the ministry, All India Council for Technical Education and the University Grants Commission to promote creativity, critical thinking and development of cognitive skills in the students enrolled in India’s technical institutes, was started in 2017.
Hackathons, touted as open innovation platforms, are sprint-like event during which engineers and students, graphic designers, interface designers and experts collaborate together to develop a functional product capable of solving the given problem within stipulated time-frame.
For previous chapters, the ministry had approached various ministries and agencies of central and state government and requested them to share their governance-related problems. Experts then tried to solve them within 36-48 hours.
BRAIN STORMING
Earlier, over 2,200 institutions and 2.5 lakh students had participated in the event for which problem statements had come from more than 90 companies apart from various central agencies and departments.