Government has recently conducted a massive online hackathon for two days, to showcase the innovative possibilities atop the Government’s ID platform Aadhaar. It attracted over 1400 entries.
A hackathon is an event, typically lasting several days, in which a large number of people meet to engage in collaborative computer programming.
It was conducted by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), in collaboration with venture capital fund AngelPrime, tech firm HackerEarth and IT industry body Nasscom.
Innovative Apps:
- A total of eleven ideas, including an app for use by Anganwadi workers and seeking to eliminate malnutrition in children, were shortlisted for final presentations
- TrueScholar: An app that verifies student identity and eliminates impersonators for online tests came out triumphant. Anantha Padmanabha who developed the student ID verification called TrueScholar, will get a prize money of Rs. 1 lakh for winning the hackathon.
- Aadhaarical: A group of Smart Chip employees bagged the second place for Aadhaarical, an app that enables people to drive without any documents and allows complete verification in real-time via Aadhaar.
- App for Anganwadis: A team of Accenture Technology Labs employees, led by Senthil Kumaresan built an app aimed to eliminate malnutrition among children. Anganwadi workers are burdened with the tasks of collecting data to track the growth of children on a weekly basis, leaving them hardly any time to focus on core activities such as providing education, nutrition and supporting pregnant mothers. The app deals with this by automatically filling up growth monitoring charts by collecting the height and weight of every child. It identifies, reports and tracks cases of malnourishment. About 1 million children under the age of five die of malnutrition-related causes in India, according to data from United Nations Children’s Fund.
The shortlisted teams are planning to showcase their products to the government and are looking for support, so that they don’t wither away post the competition. The government might provide support from a network of investors, mentors and industry experts to convert these ideas into start-ups.