TN engineering students excel in Hackathon 2018

A total of 32 teams from the SSN College of Engineering, highest across all institutes, qualified for the finals which were held across 28 centres in the country simultaneously in the event inaugurated by the Minister of Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar on March 30. 

Out of these, three teams won the first prize worth Rs 1 lakh each and two teams won the third prizes worth Rs. 50,000 each. Smart India Hackathon 2018 is the world’s biggest hackathon till date with around 1,300 teams and their mentors working non-stop for 36 hours across 28 centres in India, designing solutions to some of the most pressing problems faced by our country. 

A total of 340 problem statements were provided by 45 plus union ministries and departments and 18 state governments. Out of 28 nodal centres in various locations, SSN College teams received first prize in three nodal centres and third prize in two nodal centres. 

One of the important contributions to this achievement came from the alumni of SSN. As many as three out of the five winning teams had an alumnus mentoring them. Also, many of their alumni turned up to mentor the other teams. 

Mutthu Anamalai who was the leader of the team that secured first prize said, “It is a great challenge and a privilege to be working on the real-time problems faced by our government and citizens. It has been a very fulfilling experience for all of us in designing this solution”. 

Smart India Hackathon was initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a part of digital India initiative. It is a non-stop digital product development competition, where problems are posed to technology students for innovative solutions and it is a joint venture by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), Persistent Systems and i4c.