The Gov-Tech-Thon 2020, a 36-hour, pan-India virtual hackathon concluded earlier this week. It received registrations from over 1,300 aspirants that formed 390 teams. The hackathon webpage recorded over 15,000 visitors in two weeks. OpenGov Asia had reported on the launch of the initiative in late October on the virtual hackathon that aimed to incubate new ideas, boost innovation and use technology in agriculture and allied sectors.
The event was organised by the IEEE Computer Society, the National Informatics Centre (NIC), and the Oracle, under the aegis of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
According to a press release, 447 enthusiasts from 100 teams that were shortlisted, participated in the hackathon and tackled the five problem statements provided by three central government ministries- the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway, and the Ministry of Education. A thorough assessment of proposals was conducted by a panel of 27 jurors from the industry, academia, and government.
The five challenges were:
- Suggest alternate crops/crop rotation for farmers during different seasons using artificial intelligence (AI) technology, considering the terrain and local challenges to increase productivity.
- A seed supply chain is a complex ecosystem involving various stakeholders. Address the issues of poor seed quality effectively by tracing the seeds using blockchain technology.
- Develop a mobile/web-based based application for scanning, resizing, and uploading documents (as required) in a single flow.
- Develop a tool for monitoring online exams from homes/institutions through a combination of remote-supervision software and web cameras. The system should ensure necessary authentication, control, fraud detection, and compliance, using appropriate technology like AI/ML, etc.
- Develop a self-learning tool for automating vehicle fitness test procedures transparently.
The first place was secured by the FitForFuture team from Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Private Limited, for demonstrating an innovative solution prototype for automating vehicle fitness checks. The second prize went to the HackDemons of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Vadodara for providing a secure solution for delivering unsupervised tests remotely. Finally, the Orange team from the PES University, Bengaluru came in third for a solution for seed certification using blockchain technology.
NIC is an attached office of MeitY, established in 1976. It has provided ICT and e-governance support to the government for the last four decades, helping bridge the digital divide in the country. It has emerged as a promoter of digital opportunities for sustainable development. NIC spearheaded “Informatics-Led-Development” by implementing ICT applications in social and public administration and facilitates electronic delivery of services to the government (G2G), businesses (G2B), citizens (G2C), and government employees (G2E). Through its ICT Network, NICNET, it has institutional linkages with all the ministries /departments of the central government, 37 state governments/ union territories, and over 720 district administrations.
NIC has been closely associated with the government in different aspects of governance besides establishing a nationwide state-of-the-art ICT infrastructure, it has also built a large number of digital solutions to support the government at various levels, making the last-mile delivery of government services to the citizens a reality.
IEEE Computer Society is the world’s largest technical professional organisation dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community to innovate for a better tomorrow through its more than 419,000 members in over 160 countries. It is a premier source of information, inspiration, and collaboration in computer science and engineering.
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