india

Updated: Apr 01, 2017 13:21 IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address thousands of aspiring innovators participating in Smart India Hackathon 2017 on Saturday at 10 pm through video conferencing. Part of Modi’s Digital India Initiative, the Smart India Hackathon is intended to promote innovation and out-of-the-box thinking in young minds, especially engineering students.

The hackathon is focused on the problems of social importance identified by 29 ministries and departments of the government. They identified 598 problems, which 7,531 teams of approximately 42,000 students responded to. Of them, 1,266 teams of 10,000 participants were shortlisted for the finale. The event started at 8 am on Saturday across 26 locations in the country.

Some of the solutions expected to come out of this hackathon after 36 hours on non-stop work include:

An accurate detection of impersonation in online examination

Impersonation detection has become a huge problem in conducting school and competitive examination, especially online examination. One of the main causes of the difficulty is the lack of efficiency and integrity on the part of the invigilator. To have a fool-proof automated system, the ministry has asked the students to remove the human factor in impersonation detection.

An electronic personal safety system

A GIS based integrated solution for personal security where instant police assistance can be provided to a person in extreme distress or facing high threat to safety. The system will cater to women and children when they need immediate help.

An online submission and processing of telephone and newspaper bills in government offices

In government offices telephone and newspaper bills are largely submitted on paper for reimbursement. If a system is put in place for an online submission of these bills, it would avoid wastage of paper and time in the government offices.

Detecting condition of railway tracks

The condition of railway track is critical for safety of train operations. There have been many rail accidents in the recent past. The condition of tracks needs to be monitored proactively. A software solution that keeps track of the condition of the track and allied infrastructure and generates auto warning messages about the need of urgent maintenance can help in preventing such incidents.

Identification of fake universities

One of the major problems in the education sector is the menace of fake universities and even bona fide universities running unapproved courses through distance or regular mode. They need to be tracked. Action required to stop them can be taken through effective monitoring.

Ambulance service on national highways

In case of an accident, user can be directed to the nearest ambulance service, through the app. A list for all ambulance services can be prepared and mapped in the app, along with contact details as well as calling through the app facility.

Develop a solution for protecting photocopy of highly confidential documents

Some of the confidential document requires even higher security and needs to ensure that no one is able take its photocopy using external camera. Students will work out a solution to protect such document from photocopying.

Nutritional value of midday meal served in government-schools

To enhance enrolment, retention and attendance and at the same time improve nutritional levels among children, the government provides mid-day meals to lakhs of students across the country. Though the real-time data on number of children availing mid day meal can be tracked using the real-time school attendance of children, it is important to also monitor the nutritional value of food provided to children. For this, a low-cost and time-efficient kit is likely to be developed that gives the nutritional status of the food being served to the children on the spot and without sending to the labs for testing.

Creating games for prevention of dengue and chikunguniya

Every monsoon the entire country witnesses an upsurge of dengue and chikunguniya cases in the country. Both of these diseases are spread by Aedes mosquitoes. There is a need to create public awareness and mobilize the community about correct use of preventive measures against these diseases. Some of the preventive strategies include repellants, mosquito nets, covering water containers, preventing clogging of gutters and roof tops, avoiding stagnation of water. Dengue prevention through games may help in creation of awareness.