what is smart india hackathon

Smart India Hackathon is a nationwide initiative of the Government of India to provide students with a platform to solve some of the pressing problems faced in daily life. It started in 2017 with only a software chapter, and in 2018, a hardware chapter was introduced. The hackathon encourages students to develop technology-driven solutions that address the challenges faced by various government departments, private organizations, and NGOs. The last edition of the hackathon saw over 5 million+ students from various engineering colleges compete for the top prize at 35+ locations. The hackathon is open to students from 6th to 12th class, as well as regular students of HEIs pursuing "Graduate/Post-Graduate/Ph.D". The hackathon is also open to school-going students of class 8th and above. The hackathon is a digital product development competition, and the majority of the team members must be well-versed with programming skills. For the hardware edition, multi-disciplinary teams are encouraged, which means the team should have a good mix of Mechanical Engineers, Electronic Engineers, Product Designers, and Programmers, etc. .