The solution to the biggest problems is usually very simple. This is a familiar principle accepted on a global scale. To encourage the students studying in premier institutes to solve complicated problems, the HRD ministry is going to introduce a series of competitions. They believe that students could help to solve the major problems faced by the nation. Hackathons are a popular platform these days for students to showcase their creativity on a large scale. Most of the hackathons also offer cash and other prizes.

What and How

HRD Minister, Mr Prakash Javadekar, is pro-actively trying to improve the educational facilities and to encourage students to improve the quality of education in the country. The latest addition to this plan is the introduction of ‘Smart India Hackathon’. In this competition, students from the field of technology can participate and suggest methods to improve the problems faced by the country in various sectors. The competition expects to reach out to 30 lakh students in the country. The competition will last for 36 hours, and the winner will get a cash prize of 1 lakh rupees. The teams winning the second and third place will also win advantageous prizes. The hackathon will be held in the first quarter of 2017.

Expert Opinion

A senior government official said that the main aim of this initiative was to encourage students to come up with unconventional ideas to solve the tough problems faced by our nation. He also said that he was mainly looking for ingenious technical solutions and that this would be the largest such event in the world.

VS Oberoi, Higher Education Secretary, HRD Ministry, has taken this forward by writing to the Secretaries of other sectors to appoint officers to recognise the problems faced in their respective sectors. These problems would be given to contestants to solve in the hackathon.

Another senior official said that over 26 sectors had already responded to this initiative and the competition would be conducted in 33 centres. They believe that there are many problems faced by various sections of the government and involving youngsters would give rise to many innovative solutions which could solve these problems efficiently.

This is a commendable effort by the government to involve the youth of the country to solve the problems. Will this initiative be successful?