The Dream of ‘New’ India Becomes a Reality
As the digital solutions to 17 problems shared by Department of Atomic Energy devised in the 36-hour ‘SMART INDIA HACKATHON 2017’ were showcased at the grand finale at WeSchool
Mumbai, 03rd April 2017: The valedictory function of SMART INDIA HACKATHON 2017 saw the unfolding of the digital solutions to 17 problem statements shared by Department of Atomic Energy devised in the 36-hours of marathon at WeSchool. SMART INDIA HACKATHON 2017, World’s Biggest Hackathon jointly organized by MHRD & AICTE, was inaugurated at the hands of Shri Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for HRD along with Prof Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE at WeSchool campus in Mumbai. Last night PM Narendra Modi inspired the 10,000 odd participants across 26 nodal centers in India through video conferencing in realizing his vision to build a funnel for ‘Start Up India’, ‘Stand Up India’ through this initiative. WeSchool is privileged to be among the only two b-schools, in addition to the 24 Engineering institutes to be chosen for hosting this nationwide initiative. Mr K N Vyas, Director, BARC the Chief Guest at the valedictory function gave away the prizes to the top three teams along with Prof Dr Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool. Shri R Balasubramaniam, Scientific officer, Dept. OF Atomic Energy Shri Praful Nikam, nodal officer, AICTE and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.
The Hackathon also had another eminent guest, Shri Vinod Tawde, Minister for School, Higher And Technical Education, Sports, Youth Welfare and Cultural Affairs, Govt of Maharashtra paid a visit to WeSchool to interact with the 32 teams consisting of 237 young geeks from institutes across India that have been working hard during the 36 hr nonstop marathon to find solutions to problem statements shared by Dept. of Atomic Energy.
Shri Vinod Tawde, Minister of School, Higher And Technical Education, Sports, Youth Welfare and Cultural Affairs, Govt of Maharashtra encouraged the participants to collaborate with the Government, “Come and join hands with the Department of Education in finding solutions to the challenges faced by us, as your innovation will help crores of students in Maharashtra.” He promised to extend all support by opening avenues and giving them access to government systems.
During the valedictory session Mr K N Vyas, Director, BARC had the following words of advice to offer, “Take a holistic view while developing a combination of hardware and software .It should have compactness, portability, good graphic user interface and one should be able to make revisions in it. Be clear about your final goal. Reach for the sky but keep your feet firmly on the ground. ”
Prof Dr. Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool applauded the spirit of youth in new India,
“All of you are technically superb but you need to cross-train to achieve that extra mile. Get stronger communication and networking skills, problem solving and analytical abilities, initiative taking competencies and raise the bar of excellence. Don’t just live life, lead life.”
The first prize of Rs One lakh and a trophy was awarded to ‘Team Braintumor Radionomer’ from B P Poddar Institute Of Management And Technology from Kolkata for its solution about extraction of information from imaging and relating them to diseases and outcomes in the form of an app for refraction index mapping by analyzing T2 images of human brain.
The second prize of Rs seventy five thousand was awarded to ‘Team Tech Junkies’ of Mumbai’s VJTI for its solution about GPS mapping of resources in crisis management.
The third prize of Rs fifty thousand was awarded to ‘Team TER-X ‘ From Chandigarh Group of Colleges, Faculty of Engineering, Mohali for Geotracking locations of Hospitals and blood banks with real time database of availability of blood.
And Inspiration prize of Rs Ten thousand from Persistent Systems was awarded to team Sankalp_SCOP, Sinhgad College of Engineering, Pune for E–blood donation with a focus on Geotacking of hospitals and blood banks during disaster management.
Out of the top solutions, the most relevant for progress of national agenda will be supported by respective Ministries that shared the problem statements and with NASSCOM stepping in to source funding opportunities it is envisaged that this nationwide initiative will be instrumental in creating a new wave of start-ups, boosting the entrepreneurial wealth of India and creating jobs for many.
About WeSchool
Founded by the Shikshana Prasaraka Mandali, WeSchool is a pioneering management institution with emphasis on design-led innovative management education for shaping vision and mission of global citizen leadership. Keeping design and innovation its core, WeSchool endeavors to provide newer avenues to students towards achieving excellence in all sphere of life and nurture them to become Global Citizen Leaders.
The CII-AICTE National award for ‘Best Management Institute for Industry Institute Linkage’, 2015 has been awarded to WeSchool. Also, the “Best Innovative Institute” award at the ASSOCHAM 9th Higher Education Summit, National Excellence Awards at the hands of Union HRD Minister of State, Prof Dr. Ram Shankar Katheria was awarded to WeSchool this year. WeSchool had the honor of being bestowed the Best Management Institute of the Year Award, 2015 by the Bombay Management Association (BMA) at the hands of Mr Ratan Tata.
WeSchool has introduced several pioneering management programs in business design & innovation, e-business, retail, and healthcare, Research and Business Analytics and Media & Entertainment. WeSchool constantly experiments with new pedagogical approaches to enhance student learning. WeSchool hosted ‘MIT Media Lab (USA) – WeSchool Design Innovation Workshop’ in Mumbai, where 350 students and corporate worked together over 5 days to produce 84 prototypes of products, ‘ReDx 2015’ with – MIT Media Lab’s Health Technology Camp (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) & also engaged in the ‘Kumbhathon’ in Nasik with MIT (USA) and TCS.
WeSchool offers an extensive global exposure to its students through its rich international partnerships with world class universities in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Israel, Sweden, USA and others. The Mumbai leg of MED4DEV India Israel Innovation in Affordable Healthcare, a Hackathon jointly hosted by Pears Program For Global Innovation, University of Tel Aviv and WeSchool saw bright innovators get into an action mode to work intensely towards finding solutions to some of the most pertinent health related issues faced by the Indian diaspora.
WeSchool’s philosophy is about using the collective wisdom of “WE” to nurture insightful thinking and inspire action based leadership.