By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 3 Mar: The 2nd Edition of the UPES National Inter-University Coding Event, ‘U Hackathon 2.0’, concluded successfully at the Bidholi Campus. Team ‘SJB Institute of Technology, Bengaluru (Karnataka)’ won the ‘First Position’ in the 24 Hour Marathon Event, while ‘Team UPES‘ claimed the ‘Second Position’, and ‘Silicon Institute of Technology – Odisha’, got the ‘Third Position’ in the competitive event. The event witnessed the presence of Dr MSM Rawat, Advisor to the Minister of Higher Education, Uttarakhand, as the ‘Chief Guest’, along with Avelo Roy, Managing Director, Kolkata Ventures, as the ‘Keynote Speaker’. In his Welcome Address, Event Chair Dr TP Singh, Head, Department of Informatics, welcomed the Chief Guest, Speaker, participants and the audience. Addressing the gathering, Chief Guest Prof (Dr) MSM Rawat motivated the participants and students to work diligently to attain excellence in their domains, while Dr Veena Dutta, Registrar, UPES, apprised the participants and guests about the UPES journey. In his keynote address, Start-Up Mentor Avelo Roy delivered a talk on ‘Technical Entrepreneurship and Incubation’. Sharing his experiences with the participants and the audience, Roy guided them on how to have a start-up of their own, urging them to inculcate humanitarian values and excel as ‘Technopreneurs’. “A start-up needs a positive outlook but one should also be ready to handle the initial failure, too. Following the teachings of the ‘Bhagvad Gita’ in your management techniques will help you achieve your goals,” he asserted. He later visited the ‘Incubation Center’ of the University and appreciated the work being done there. Arun Dhand, Senior Director, UPES, stated that this event, organised by the ‘School of Computer Science, UPES’, is the most awaited National Inter-University coding event of the University. “Teams from 11 states of the country competed with each other fiercely. Besides the prizes monies worth Rs 1 lakh, the winners also took home gift hampers, internships and a grand opportunity of direct participation in ‘IEEE International Hackathon YESIST’ scheduled to be held in Malaysia during the current year,” he disclosed. Event Convener Chandra Mani Sharma and Event Co- Conveners Sugandha Sharma and Dr Shweta Mongia disclosed that the participating teams underwent three evaluations whereby out of the 53 teams that qualified for the finals, only the best 12 could make it to the top. The ‘Valedictory Ceremony’ saw Team ‘The Hack Squad’ from ‘SJB Institute, Karnataka’ coming ‘First’ with its 3D model to create an extended version of virtual reality and give a realistic feedback to the user. It was presented a Winners’ Trophy, individual Medals and Gift Hampers and prize money of Rs 30,000. The ‘Smart Helmet’ idea – an IoT-based helmet that would help in prevention of road accident by ‘Team UPES, Dehradun’, won the the ‘Second Position’ and prize money of Rs 20,000. ‘Team Silicon’, Institute of Technology, Odisha’ was ‘Third’ with a driver alert system using sensors and image processing, winning a cash prize of Rs 10,000. Among the other categories, prizes by ‘Xebia’, the ‘Best Innovative Idea Award’, went to ‘Overlocked Brains’ from ‘SVIT – Gujarat’; the ‘Agile Team Award’ went to ‘Chitkara University, Punjab’; ‘Most Hardworking Team Award’ to ‘Tech Squad’ from ‘UPES – Dehradun’, while the ‘Most Promising Team Award’ was claimed by ‘Annihilators’ from ‘Banasthali Vidhyapeeth – Rajasthan’; ‘Best Campus Ambassador Award’ went to Manjot Singh from ‘Alpine Institute – Dehradun’, and the ‘Best Student Volunteer Award’ went to Harshit Gupta of ‘BTech, CSE, UPES’. In the Vote of Thanks, Sugandha expressed gratitude to the Expert Jury Panel of Avelo Roy, Manjit Singh and N Krishnan – IBM; Laurence Djengo and Saurabh Sodhi – Xebia; Saroj Kumar – ESIC; and Ramneek – Regional Head, IEEE YESIST. The Organising Committee comprised Bhavna Kaushik, Dr Anjali Gautam, Ninni Singh, Shubhi Sharma, Richa Choudhury, Dr Hitesh Kumar Sharma, Dr Hukam Singh Rana, Deepak Kumar Sharma, Abhijit Kumar, Rahul Singh, Anupam Singh, Amarendra Nath Tripathi, Dr Amar Shukla, Amit Singh, Dr Pankaj Badoni and Sandeep Singh. The Student Convener was Harshit Gupta, ‘Student Co-Convener’, Nishtha Grover, with an entire team of Student Volunteers.
