THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a first-of-its-kind event in the country, around 350 techie brains will come together to formulate solutions to the ever-growing issues of road safety at the ‘Kerala Road Safety Hackathon’, on Saturday.
The 24-hour coding event to kick-start at Technopark is aimed at generating innovative solutions, software programmes, applications or concepts for road safety and reduce accidents.
The two-day hackathon, to be organised by the Kerala Road Safety Authority in association with the World Bank, International Financial Corporation and Axa Insurance, will be inaugurated by State Security Commission member and former DGP P K Hormis Tharakan at Park Centre at 10 am.
World Bank Lead Transport Specialist Arnab Bandyopadhyay along with Kerala Technological University Vice-Chancellor Kuncheria Isaac, Technopark CEO KG Gireesh Babu and Transport and Road Safety Commissioner R Sreelekha will attend the inauguration to be presided over by IT secretary P H Kurian. The hackathon is an attempt to find out solutions which facilitate road safety and find solutions to increasing accidents, said Transport Commissioner R Sreelekha.
Software and hardware solutions on four major sectors of road safety - engineering, enforcement, education and emergency care and post crash management.
About 350 people have already registered for the coding event which will start at 12 noon on Saturday will go on till 12 noon on Sunday. Computer programmers, graphic designers and project managers would be part of the team of techies taking part in the Hackathon.
At the end of the event, cash prizes would be given to the best three innovators. The winners would get `1.90 lakh each, while the runners up would be given `95,000. They would be given sufficient support to develop their ideas within 3-6 months. “The future of road safety is mainly on the shoulders of youngsters. Of the total accidents in the state about 60-70 pc involve the youth,” said Sreelekha.