The Grand Finale of SmartIndia Hackathon 2019 – Hardware edition, an event of great eminence is being organized at KIET Group of Institutions, Ghaziabad. The institute is hosting this mega event wherein 14 teams with 84 participants including 32 girls from various institutions across 10 states of the nation are participating to showcase their skills and develop hardware solution to the problems given by eminent industries. The participation of female candidates is really enthusiastic this year as the ratio of male and female is unbelievably 1:1.6.
The event is growing each year in terms of participation and solutions. It started in the year 2017, with participation of around 50000 students, in year 2018 around one lac students participated and this year, the magnitude has grown bigger as there is a participation of around two lac students this year.
Dr Mohit Gambhir, Director MHRD Innovation Cell and Coordinator Smart India Hackathon 2019 said, in this Hardware Edition, more than 1.2 Lac students from 2235 colleges sent their entries for 198 problem statements, submitted by more than 40 industries and 9 Central Govt. Ministries and various Government Departments. Around 2000 participants from 250 teams of 178 different colleges are participating in the Grand finale of SmartIndia Hackathon 2019 Hardware Edition. The grand finale is being conducted for next 5 days at 18 different Nodal Centres in 9 states, one Union Territory and one Capital Territory of India. These teams will provide innovative hardware solutions for 124 problems.
In Smart India Hackathon-2019 Hardware edition, problems are broadly based on Agriculture & Rural Development, Food Technology, Waste Management, Clean Water, Renewable Energy, Healthcare & Biomedical devices, Smart Vehicles, Robotics and Drones, Security & Surveillance, Smart Communication, Sports and Fitness, Sustainable Environment, Smart Textile, Smart Cities. It is being believed that the “Out of Box Thinking” of students will bring out technology based, easy, workable solutions, which will lead to commercial products to develop start-ups.
On 8th July 2019 the inaugural ceremony of Smart India Hackathon 2019 – Hardware Edition at KIET Group of Institutions. The function witnessed lighting of the ceremonial lamp to seek blessings of the Goddess Saraswati in the presence of Director Dr. (Col.) Amik Garg, Joint Director Dr. Manoj Goel, Chief Guest Prof. Pankaj Pandey, Prof. Satendra Srivastava, General Manager Technology Business Incubator (TBI), Senior Professionals, Mentors, Participating Teams and others.
Dr. (Col.) Amik Garg Director, KIET Group of Institutions, in his inauguration address congratulated the participating teams & their mentors welcomed them to the campus. Expressing his excitement, he informed that SIH-2019 is a non-stop five-day mega event for product development which is set up for evolving creativity and inquisitiveness from the budding technocrats to give them a spark for initiating new start-ups.
Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, Union Cabinet Minister of Human Resource Development addressed the 18 Nodal centres’ participants through video conferencing saying that, he felt quite elated with the mission of Honorable Prime Minister regarding “Make in India, StartUp India and Stand up India” that is bridging the gap between the academia and the Industry. He motivated the participants for innovation, Entrepreneurship, Research and Development.
He appreciated the research of the participants on contaminated water, Generation of electricity, medical and road traffic solutions for making the theme “Swacch Bharat and Samradh Bharat” to be implemented on ground level. He stated “As a few IIT’s are adopting villages to develop them as Smart Villages and we have our own mission and vision for the country, all the Engineering institutes should play their responsibities of being great citizens by adopting more and more villages in association with ministries to enhance their developments at a faster pace”.
Shri P. V. Madhusudhan Rao, Head of the department of Design, IIT even encouraged young generation to get into research & innovation. He suggested students to look for opportunities related entrepreneurship which will scale up in developing future tycoons. He also stated that students’ grooming in terms of experiential and social collaboration will help them in learning, networking & being better engineers.
The ceremony concluded with the video conferencing by Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman AICTE, Mr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, AS (TE) & CVO, MHRD, Dr. Anand Deshpande, Chairman & MD Persistent Systems LTD, Mr. Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre- Minister of State and others.
