IIT-KGP hackathon: Women teams bag top three ranks

The teams worked continuously for five consecutive days to build their hardware solutions as a working prototype. The top three winning teams won cash prizes of Rs 100,000, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000, respectively.

The winning team designed a prototype for ‘non-destructive estimation of sugar content of fruits using visible-light imaging’. (Representational)

Three all-women teams swept the Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2018 — a technology innovation competition for students held by IIT Kharagpur annually.

The theme for this year’s Hackathon was Agriculture/Agro-electronics. Of the nine finalists, Whistling Cookers of Avinashilingam Deemed University for Women (Coimbatore), was declared the winner, while the first runner-up — Team Buddies — was from the same college. The second runner-up was Team Askurvara from the Silicon Institute of Technology (Bhubaneswar).

SIH, 2018 — Hardware edition is the first-of-its-kind innovation challenge initiated by the Ministry of HRD to provide a national platform to young technical minds to showcase their innovations, which can bring about revolutionary changes in crucial sectors like agriculture, health, clean water, waste management, automotive, smart communication, and education.

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The event has seen student innovations in smart drip irrigation, technology-powered mechanical harvesters and soil testing, and cost-effective detection of the status of fruits and vegetables. The winning team designed a prototype for ‘non-destructive estimation of sugar content of fruits using visible-light imaging’.

Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur and Chairman, SIH2018, said, “I think innovation challenges such as SIH2018 are going to bring in new era in innovation and transform the process by which we teach engineering.” He has promised all the nine teams support for start-ups.

The nine competing teams at IIT-Kharagpur were judged by an external jury comprising top entrepreneurs and partners of leading business incubators in the agri-tech sector.

The teams worked continuously for five consecutive days to build their hardware solutions as a working prototype.
The top three winning teams won cash prizes of Rs 100,000, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000, respectively.

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