NITI Aayog launches global hackathon to crowdsource mobility solutions

The hackathon is focused on 10 themes and is open to individuals from all nationalities.

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Envisaged to be one of the largest hackathons in the world, the NITI Aayog on Thursday launched a global mobility hackathon "Move Hack" to crowdsource future mobility solutions for India.

Focused on 10 themes and open to individuals from all nationalities, the hackathon will have an online leg, followed by a Singapore leg, and the finals in New Delhi.

"Move Hack is the first platform in the world which has enmeshed public transport, private transport, road safety, multimodal connectivity and new age transport technologies such as zero emission vehicles and intra-city aerial transport in a hackathon platform spearheaded by a government," NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said.

"We want the best minds in India and globally to compete and come up with prototypes and solutions for these challenges. India has some of the most diverse problem contexts in the world. If you can solve for India, you can solve for the world and we will help you get there," he added.

The top 30 solutions emerging out of the online leg will be mentored in Singapore and the top 20 teams from Singapore leg will participate in the final round to be held in New Delhi on September 5 and 6, an official statement said.

Awards for the hackathon include recognizing top 10 winners with total prize of more than Rs 2 crore, it added. The winners will be announced during the Move Summit 2018, which is also organised by the NITI Aayog on September 7 and 8.

"Rapidly evolving technologies and business models for delivering mobility services have dramatic potential to transform the global transportation sector. Mobility that ranges from pedestrian and personal transport to public transit and freight movement is extremely critical and impacts rural and urban daily lives," the statement said.

The evaluations will be done by jury comprising of subject matter experts, venture capitalists, business leaders and successful entrepreneurs such as Debjani Ghosh (President, NASSCOM), Nivruti Rai (Country Head, Intel India), Dennis Ong (Distinguished Architect and Head of Architecture & Systems Engineering, Verizon) and P. Anandan (CEO, Wadhwani AI).

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