NITI Aayog Pune Smart City Hackathon
Pune city ranked 2nd among the hundred participant cities in an 2015 un-orthodox challenge to compete for fast-paced growth. A development plan was put forward and several challenges were brought to notice. Pune envisaged to solve these problems by leveraging the power of crowd sourcing. Pune Smart City hosted its first ever ‘Hackathon’ in 2018, in which several teams of our college participated.
The first phase was the online submission of ideas out of which two teams i.e the Team Stampeders and the team Road Inspectors got selected for the next round to be held in Pune University.
The first phase of idea submission was conducted between 10th August and 16th September 2018. It comprised of two events- Ideathon and Solutionthon. In Ideathon the ideal participating team had to propose an innovative solution which is not yet developed or deployed. The team was expected to come up with a working prototype of the solution which solved a problem from the sub-themes. In Solutionthon the ideal participating team had to be a solution provider with a ready and mature solution. The team was expected to provide/develop a working platform/model that solved a problem from the provided sub-themes.
We the Team Stampeders participated in Ideathon under the sub-theme Public Health and the team Road Inspectors also took part in Ideathon under the sub-theme Safety and Security.
The results for the online phase were declared on 24th September 2018. Our teams received an invitation from Pune University,Ganeshkhind Rd,Aundh,Pune for the Hackathon to be held on 29th and 30th September as we qualified the first round.
The next step was to fill a confirmation form after notifying the college authorities about the same. We reached Pune University around 8:00 am on 29th and registered for the event. On registering we were provided with goodies and allocated our seats.
Once we wore the official T shirt provided to us by the organizers we joined the other participants in a huge hall filled with several prototypes from different corners of India. Once we were aware of everything going on around us and notified about the further proceedings,we set up our prototypes for the first round of monitoring.
We were provided a good breakfast which was immediately followed by several workshops organised by top entrepreneurs giving us the knowledge about the market, startup-scenario and above all how to make a mark in this big business world. The first round of monitoring by the mentors started as soon as the workshops ended and was paused by the lunch break. The mentoring team remained with us throughout the day giving us tips to improve and some knowledge about small technicalities. We worked upon those areas over night for the next big day of the evaluation and presentation.
The next day was draining for all of us both emotionally and physically. We all had worked hard the night before and were also anxious about the presentation round. As soon as the set up and breakfast was over, the jury visited us for the First round of evaluation. Our jury was divided on the basis of sub themes.
We the team Stampeders built an interactive Website for better access to Public Health Care units in Pune and called it ASAP(A Smarter Access for PHCs).
The other team- Team Road Inspectors had made a Pothole detection and location for road safety device under the sub theme safety and security.
We were all evaluated on the basis of our innovation,presentation skills and the cross questions that followed up. This round led us to talk about the future scope of our respective projects in a very broader domain. We were questioned about the feasibility and efficiency of our ideas.
The results for the first round were announced after the lunch break. Unfortunately neither of us qualified for the final screening by a different jury. We got our certificates later on during the prize ceremony.
Pune Hackathon opened the gateway for a very impressive approach to solve issues in our minds. We witnessed many startup ideas which were exceptionally good and got to learn a lot from the workshops that were organised. There are several new technologies being introduced around us day by day which may appear latent but are very crucial for the development of a city in general. Our teams were praised for the issues we selected by the jury.
Public Health is the most important step for the development of a place. A city where people have better access to health care facilities is said to prosper and at the same time transportation is crucial for day to day life. Road safety is quite essential as it often adds to the ornamental development as well as the development of a secure transport system.
These two days brought out the best in us and we learnt several damage control techniques as well as importance of team work and coordination. This invaluable experience is replaceable.
