Udupi: Bantakal Students win India’s biggest Edu Hackfest

By Anil Belle
Bellevision Media Network

Udupi, 20 Oct 2015: Team Asbestos, a group of 5 students from Sri Madhwa Vadiraja Institute of Technology and Management, (SMVITM), Bantakal near here won the first prize at the Mega State Level Education Hack Fest- 2015 held at Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi from October 16 to0 October 17. The winning team received an IBM- Microsoft grant of US $ 36,000 and certificates as prizes.

 

The team consisted of Pratheek Hegde and Shricharan Bhat of 7th semester computer science and engineering; Amrusha and Sankusha of 5th semester computer science and engineering and Nikhil Acharya of 7th semester electronics and communication engineering departments of the Institute.

 

 

The consecutive 24 hour event – in which around 500 students from colleges across the state affiliated to VTU participated – where the participants had to work on a problem related to the future of Indian education and Digital India initiative. The event was jointly organised by VTU and Talentspear in association with the Deshpande Foundation.

 

The website of the event described it as one where participants were invited to, ‘Come together for 24 hours with the brightest minds to enhance the software development skills, team work and entrepreneurial aspirations, to evolve themselves into a better programmer, a better engineer at VTU to make something amazing.’ According to the website, the focus of the 24-hour Hackathon was to build new applications and products, a highly scalable and agile app or a portal. The participants were offered help and advice from engineers and software developers from start-ups to MNCs with on the ground experience.

 

Team Asbestos won the first prize for presenting a solution which they called Vidhya Aadhar, an online profiling system, where the curriculum mark cards are stored digitally based on Aadhar number. The project was mentioned to be one of its kind and profusely praised by the judges for its potential to tap digital technology to enhance educational services in the country.

 

The management, director, principal and the faculty of the Institute congratulated the team on their outstanding achievement.