By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 27 Feb: The second edition of the UPES National Inter-University Coding Event ‘U Hackathon 2.0’ begins at UPES on 28 February. The 24 Hour marathon event organised by the School of Computer Science (SCS), UPES is being held at the Bidholi campus of the University. The competition that will begin at 12 noon will continue non- stop for 24 hours until 12 noon on 29 February to find its ultimate champion. Dr Dhan Singh Rawat, Uttarakhand’s Minister of State for Higher Education, will inaugurate the event as the ‘Chief Guest’ in the presence of the ‘Keynote Speaker’ Avelo Roy – Managing Director, Kolkata Ventures, and expert juries from IBM; ESIC etc. Briefing the media on the event, Arun Dhand, Senior Director, UPES, disclosed that the first edition of this interactive and technical inter- university event was organised by the ‘UPES School of Computer Science’ in May, last year. The ‘Event Chair’, Dr Thipendra P Singh, Head, Department of Informatics, SCS, shared that the online registrations for ‘U Hackathon 2.0’ began in September 2019 and offered 28 themes ranging from Smart Communication Systems; Agriculture & Rural Development; Food Technology; Cyber Forensics; Healthcare & Biomedical Devices; Smart Vehicles; Robotics & Drones; AI Systems and Blockchain Technology to the participating teams. “410 teams comprising 1398 participants from 21 states from all over the country submitted the abstracts of their ideas for this coding event. Eventually, after two rigorous rounds of evaluation by our panel of Industry Experts, only 53 teams qualified for the final round,” he stated. The ‘Event Convener’, Chandra Mani Sharma, Assistant Prof (SS), SCS, revealed that ‘U Hackathon 2.0’ is a unique initiative to provide a platform to the young students with coding as their passion enabling them to identify real life problems and to think, design and develop modern solutions for them. The competition will expose the participating students to an environment that will be optimal for exploring new techniques for problem solving, besides being an ultimate test of the participant’s Coding skills, Patience and Resilience. Dean Dr Manish Prateek has provided the guidance and support to the faculty and the team of student volunteers working untiringly for the success of the event. The ‘Event Co-Conveners’ Sugandha Sharma, Assistant Professor and Dr Shweta Mongia, Associate Professor at SCS, revealed that the panel of jury members from the Industry will continuously evaluate the participating teams throughout the duration of the competition. “The winners will take back prizes worth around Rs 1 lakh besides great internship opportunities in industries of repute,” they added.
