GOV-TECHTHON 2020: Incubating new ideas for a better India

A unique government-industry collaboration has been formed to spur new ideas to solve on-ground problems in agriculture, education and transportation. The tripartite agreement between National Informatics Centre (NIC), IEEE and Oracle will see a virtual hackathon, Gov-TechThon 2020 this weekend (October 30 – November 1, 2020), to incubate new ideas, boost innovation and use technology in agriculture and allied sectors. The event will be facilitated by IEEE Computer Society, a known body for engineering, computing and technology information.
The virtual hackathon is open to students, working professionals, startups, freelance technologists, faculty, and IT services firms in India. Shortlisted teams will operate virtually. During the hackathon, they will receive mentorship from domain experts from NIC, IEEE Computer Society, Oracle and experts from the ministries of agriculture, education and transportation.

Participating teams will have access to the latest tools from Oracle, including Oracle Autonomous Database, built-in and easy-to-use cloud security, and compute – to help them develop prototypes that are practical and scalable. Additionally, they will be able to leverage open source technologies that bring in benefits of high performance, reliability and data security.

For Gov-TechThon 2020, NIC has shortlisted five key problem scenarios in collaboration with the ministries:
AI based crop recommendations: This aims to help farmers get their crop rotation planning right and improve yields and profitability.

Blockchain based seed certification: This aims to ensure quality check throughout the supply chain of seed distribution via track and trace and audit capabilities so that farmers are provided with the best quality seeds for improved yields.

Automated vigilance in exams/ tests: This aims to support educational institutes manage unsupervised tests, by minimising the need for invigilators/ examiners/ supervisors to travel to (or be present in) multiple locations by enabling remote monitoring/ observation.

Automated fitness check process for commercial vehicles: This aims to curb malpractices among commercial vehicle checks and improve assessment time and vehicle owner experience.

We are hopeful that Gov-TechThon 2020 will spur some new ideas that we can implement in the near future: Verma

Easy document uploads: This aims to permit citizens to scan and submit necessary documents while availing different government services.

Neeta Verma, director-general, NIC, said, “We realise how technology, including cloud and open source, can play an important role in supporting India’s core economic sectors and its communities. For example, to elevate the quality of life for farmers and to ensure increased returns for their produce, we have been pushing for increased use of technology in Indian agriculture. We are hopeful that Gov-TechThon 2020 will spur some new ideas that we can implement in the near future.”