A two day hackathon themed ‘Hack2Help - Social Innovation Hackathon’ concluded at IITM Research Park, Chennai on 8th April, 2017. The event held for 2 days - 7th & 8th April saw participation from 24 teams (80 participants) from 12 colleges across Tamil Nadu.
The 2 day hackathons’ objective was to focus on idea scouting, problem defining, ideating for solutions and on the spot solution development. The event open to students above 16 years was to spur ideation and innovative thinking among youth to solve real world problems by building smart solutions for social cause. Towards this objective, civil societies, innovation and hacker communities, academia, start-up ecosystem and government organisations have come together to create appropriate linkages.
Students were asked to build novel solutions addressing social issues like education, health care, citizen services, agriculture and farming, smart technology, disaster management, clean and green energy.
The hackathon sponsored by the US Consulate, Chennai and executed by Learning Links Foundation was supported by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras Incubation Cell & IITM’s Rural Technology & Business Incubator (RTBI).
On 7th April, Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT Madras, Ms. Ariel Pollock, U.S. Consulate General Chennai, Ms. Nuriya Ansari, Learning Links Foundation and Mr. Ravi Ranjan, NASSCOM 10000 Startups Bangalore inaugurated the Chennai Hackathon. Mentors from and judges from Industry, start-up and incubation ecosystem and academia participated and worked with the teams over the two days.
Ms. Deborah Robinson, Acting Consul General, U.S. Consulate General Chennai participated in the final award ceremony on the 8th April evening and gave away awards and cash prizes of INR 25,000, 15,000 and 10,000 each for the First, Second and Third prize winners of each city.
The winners of the Chennai hackathon are-
