Cochin University of Science and Technology hackathon to test innovators
KOCHI: The Centre for Innovation, Technology Transfer and Industrial Collaboration (CITTIC), the official technology business incubator of Cusat, is set to conduct an augmented reality (AR) treasure hunt, hackathon, learning station and a workshop, to enable student innovators from across the state to collaborate, work and learn from industry and academia experts. The two-day hackathon has been tied up with Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) on the subject 'smarter cities' and the best projects will be adapted by it. Innovators from various colleges and institutions will have to work on the Smart City challenges in different heads like Education and Skill, Food and Agriculture, Housing and Transportation, Health and Hygiene, Citizen Empowerment and Transparency, Finance and Personal Security and Energy, Water and Environment.
Students will also get a chance to get insights from successful entrepreneurs and experts from industry and academia like C Balagopal, founder, Terumo Penpole Ltd, Cusat VC Dr J Letha and Startup Village founder Sijo Kuruvilla George. The 45 plus learning stations run by mentors covering latest technology areas like machine learning to Internet of Things enable students to get hands-on experience for free. There are non-technical events like origami, clay modeling and cake making also. Apart from that more than 60 startups and student projects will be showcased for public.
"Selected teams from the hackathon will be evaluated by an expert panel comprising members from the academia, government and citizenry, and will be provided with a chance to test, validate and pilot in their specific domain. Students have a chance to travel from an ideator to becoming an entrepreneur. “There will be certain key challenges which will have individual buying from the government to pilot and test in the city while everything from the internet protocol to research document can rest with innovators themselves," said S. Lekshmi, coordinator of Cusat-Innovate-17, under whose banner the events are to be held on February 18 and 19.
