Kerala students develop virtual classroom, win Code19 Hackathon

"The duo drew inspiration for the virtual classroom after facing issues during their live classes. During the lockdown, it has become the new normal and we needed to make the experience better," remarked Shilpa.

Kerala engineering students won the CODE19 hackathon

Kerala engineering students Abhinand C (left), Shilpa Rajeev (right) won the CODE19 hackathon for their virtual classroom- iClassroom.

The virtual classroom — ‘iClassroom’ — developed by two computer science engineering students from Kerala, Abhinand C and Shilpa Rajeev, won the ‘CODE19 online hackathon against coronavirus‘. The duo built the digital classroom in just 72 hours. The virtual classroom, according to 19-year-old Abhinand, will include a live classroom, group interactions, subject-wise digital content of different streams. It will also have school-level educational content available digitally.

“The i-classroom is an engaging peer-to-peer social media platform which will serve as a platform for enhanced learning within and outside physical classrooms. The virtual classroom will be totally free and have options from live classroom to group interaction,” informed Abhinand.

The 72-hour online hackathon- CODE19 was hosted by the Silicon Valley-based Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation. Around 3,000 people participated in the digital competition from across the globe. The winners will get a prize worth $10,000 (approximately Rs 7,55,200).

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According to his batchmate and co-winner, Shilpa Rajeev, they drew inspiration for the virtual classroom from their own experience. “The idea to develop a unique virtual classroom came to us as we faced problems during our live classes. During the lockdown, it has become the new normal and we needed to make the experience better,” she commented.

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“The project is at its initial stage; we are working on coding for the website, and other aspects to ensure smooth functioning,” stated 20-year-old Shilpa.

The duo plans to integrate emerging courses offered by various institutes in their virtual classroom. “We have a plan to collaborate with IITs, IIMs, government and private varsities to offer online courses through our platform, and will conceptualise to provide courses on emerging topics,” said Shilpa. It will take three to four months to become fully operational and the iClassroom will be available in an app version as well, the students said.

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The second prize in the hackathon was bagged by students from Manipal Institute of Technology for enabling remote diagnosis of Covid19 patients, while the third prize was awarded to three teams for their projects – SoloCoin, which gamifies social distancing by allowing people to earn solo coins by staying at home and redeeming them for rewards from various merchants; Covid19 Fact Checker, a fake news checker that leverages authentic government, scientific, and public health information; and Grape Community, an open platform that connects people with their neighborhood shopkeepers and suppliers.

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