The UNESCO INDIA — AFRICA Hackathon or UIA is an annual 36 hours event that brings together students, educators, teachers, and the research community of India and its African partners to tackle the common challenges faced by their countries and serves as a facilitator for cultural amalgamation. It also serves as a symbol of the close relationship cherished by India and its African counterparts.
About 232 students from Smart India Hackathon 2022 winners got the chance to participate in this hackathon, after qualifying for the test organized by the MoE’s Innovation Cell, along with 338 African students from 22 other African countries. This hackathon had the theme LiFE with 5 sub-themes of Education, Energy, Drinking Water and Sanitation, Agriculture, and Health and Hygiene. A total of 100 teams participated under 20 problem statements that were based on these sub-themes. UIA Committee assigned the problem statements to the participating Teams. The Participation teams were formed by the UIC committee and each team consisted of Indian and African Students.
Around 2 weeks later, after my selection mail, I got the details of the Problem statement and the team (Team ID: UIA106). My team had 4 African students and 2 Indian students (including me) — Ayushi Saxena (India), Pedro Anda ONDO NCHAMA (Equatorial Guinea), Faremi Saheed (Eswatini), Tony Onkgopotse Richard (Botswana), and Frank Makeba (Zimbabwe). We were assigned the Problem Statement AGRI12 under the theme of Agriculture — an AI-based voice-assisted Contact Center for assisting Farmers for their problems.
AI based voice assisted Contact Center for assisting Farmers for their problems. Farmers can log their problems with the contact center thru phone calls / sms / website and in return an automated voice response can be provided to the farmers with most appropriate solution for their problems.
I was very excited to meet all my teammates. We were also assigned one mentor by the UIA committee. I tried to contact them on Whatsapp and planned an introductory meeting. In that meeting, I came to know one of my African teammates only understands Spanish. We used Google Translate and sent him the meeting notes in Spanish after every meeting to make him understand his tasks. After that, we decided on the team leader, planned our tasks based on our tech expertise in building the prototype, and finalized our team name — Geeks_on_Fire.
And, the big day arrived. We all meet first-time in-Person at Gautam Buddha University, Uttar Pradesh. The hackathon was preceded by a colorful inauguration ceremony on 22nd Nov’22 addressed by the Hon’ble CM of UP Shri. Yogi Adityanath. I got an opportunity to be a flag marcher for Indian students to mark the beginning of the UNESCO India Africa Hackathon, seeing students smiling and dancing in their traditional attire. Literally had goosebumps when marching with the national flag, an honor that will remain till I am alive.
Finally, 36 hours non-stop UNESCO India Africa Hackathon begins on 23rd Nov’22. The campaign was put in motion by Prof. R K Sinha, VC, Gautam Buddha University along with Dr. Abhay Jere, CIO, Innovation Cell, Ministry of Education. Then, the coding began. After the 1st round of mentoring, we were happy as we got an appreciation for our Ideation and understanding of the Problem statement very well. In the 1st round of evaluation, we received positive comments but we were struggling while building the frontend of our project. We had spent the whole night at our desks for discussions and implementations of the frontend of our project. In the final evaluation round, we panicked due to an error that occurred in UI while presenting. We got the time for 10 minutes from the judges to fix that issue. Then we quickly found the bug and presented the solution again. We were satisfied with our presentation and praised by the judges.
The closing ceremony began on 25th Nov’22 and we anxiously waited for the results. The Vice President of India, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar addressed the valedictory session of the UNESCO India Africa Hackathon as a Chief Guest along with the Governor of UP Smt. Anandiben Patel & Cabinet Minister for Education and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Shri. Dharmendra Pradhan at Gautam Buddha University, Uttar Pradesh. He underscored the civilizational connection and shared historical bond between India and Africa, and said that “we are neighbors across the Indian ocean”.
We were so much nervous as the winners of the problem statements were being announced but the moment we heard our team’s name as the winner of the problem statement AGRI12. I felt on top of the world. It was such an honor to receive the Gold medals along with the cheque of 3 lacs as prize money from the Vice President of India and the Education Minister of India.
I gained a multitude of experiences and good memories while meeting people from African Countries as well as other fellow Indians. It was a grand celebration of innovation that involved collaboration, teamwork, and cultural exchanges that I feel truly privileged to have been a part of.
If you enjoyed reading our way through UNESCO India Africa Hackathon and do let us know your views in the comments. In case you want to connect with me, follow the links below:
