World's Largest Hackathon - SIH 2017

10000 Students (working at)

26 Nodal Centres (for)

36 hours at a stretch (to solve)

598 problems of 29 Ministries /Departments

Numbers can tell a powerful story. Isn't it?

Background

SIH was launched on Nov 9, 2016 to harness creativity and expertise of 3 million + engineering students, build a funnel for Startup India and crowdsource solutions for improving governance through innovative solutions to India's daunting problems.

HRD Minister, Mr Prakash Javedkar inaugurated the hackathon at national level and addressed the Smart India Hackathon 2017 participants through video conferencing. 

Grand Finale in 26 cities

Grand Finale of "Smart India Hackathon 2017” began at 8 am on 1st April and was concluded at 8 pm on 2nd April 2017, a 36 hrs non stop event at 26 nodal centres. It is an open innovation model aimed at generating 25,000 startups in addition to finding digital solutions to the problems of 29 union ministries & government departments. It was not surprising that the event (#SmartIndiaHackathon2017) trended on Twitter at No 1 & 2 for 2 consecutive days.

Mr. Manish Sisodia, Deputy CM, Delhi was the Chief Guest at NDIM during the inaugural ceremony. He shared, "We keep looking at our history, the rear view mirror while driving". Mr. Sanjay Kumar Verma, Jt Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs emphasized, “Please start thinking big, that is how we all will move forward.”

Power of the Youth @NDIM, New Delhi

The students worked throughout the day on their respective projects. After the Zumba Dance break at 1 AM the intense energy continued and genius ideas were converted into working prototypes overnight. Prime Minister Modi addressed the participants by video conferencing on 1st April evening and shared that the youth of India are blessed with phenomenal energy. He added that today, the youngsters of India want to be job creators and not mere job seekers.

The next day began with Morning Yoga and refreshed the participants for another hectic day ahead. Prof. Anil D. Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE visited NDIM and shared his words of wisdom & Inspiration.

Dr Vinay Sahsrabuddhe was the Chief Guest at the valedictory function in the evening. He is National VP, BJP, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, VP, Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini and Honorary Director, Public Policy Research Centre. He highlighted that we need to localise the hackathon concept in the future to solve the problems of local bodies like municipality" Mr R. Chandrasekhar (President, NASSCOM) noted in his valedictory address that today it is possible to solve old problems in new ways at a price point & other factors suitable for India.

Creating a Win-Win

Winning teams got cash prizes worth Rs 50 Lakhs and their startups would be funded under NASSCOM 10,000 startups program. On the other hand their ideas will be adopted by the concerned ministry.

The event was planned by the Government of India at a massive scale with the vision that it enters the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’ and ‘Limca Book of Records’ as the world’s biggest Hackathon till date.

Large number of innovative digital solutions and global startups emerged / are emerging. And India's 1st Hackathon ended up becoming the world's biggest Hackathon.

Empowering Youth

It was the first time students have been involved to build digital solutions to improve efficiency and plug revenue leakages/ corruption in government departments.

Learning Unlimited

As our team managed the social media for 2 days at NDIM, New Delhi, it was indeed a great learning exercise for all of us. Some of the learning is pointed out below:-

Use of social media- Social media was effectively used to promote the event and guidelines were shared with nodal centres on how to connect with media organisations and journalists to promote the event.

Collaboration- Ministry of HRD organised the event in association with AICTE and Persistent Systems. (The co-organisers also included NIC, mygov, NASSCOM, UGC and Rambhau Malgi Prabodhini. In a way, it was a PPP exercise (Public Private Partnership)> It was the power of collaboration that the event trended on Twitter for 2 days right at the top. Other ministries and host colleges also collaborated in the exercise which was also supported by Government bodies like mygov among others.

Motivating engineering students-It was a good exercise to motivate the best engineering brains in the country especially under current circumstances when engineering students have a low morale due to poor employment opportunities. PM Modi emphasised that the media needs to treat the youth as the celebrities of the day and only the young participants should be highlighted in the photo/ video frames.

Application of Digital tools

While an open forum was started by mygov.in to facilitate interactions between participants and ministries, a Community of Innovative Minds has also been created to bring the winners together.

Conclusion

Being a massive success, the event has become a role model and inspiration to conduct similar events in future. The New India is emerging. Go India Go and become the golden sparrow once again.

As Dhruv Goel, a student of NDIM rightly tweeted, "#Dancing, #Fun #Hacking #Innovation #Yoga #PeaceofMind #DigitalIndia all this at one place NDIM"

Kudos to the organisers and participants.

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Brief Profile

Dr Amit Nagpal, PhD is a Business Storyteller, Speaker and Digital Storytelling Coach. He is one of the pioneers of digital storytelling in India. After working for more than two decades in academics, and corporates (including publishing, television and digital marketing), he realised teaching is meditation and storytelling is his Nirvana.

He is also Chief Inspirational Storyteller at AL Services. AL Services has co-created stories of some of the most inspiring people in India and abroad. He tweets at @DrAmitInspires.