Ravi Shankar Prasad launches the Nation-Wide Hackathon #OpenGovDataHack
Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad launched a nation-wide hackathon #OpenGovDataHack. As part of the Startup Eco-system Development program, NIC and IAMAI have collaborated to conduct Nation Wide Hackathon #OpenGovDataHack across seven states of India. It aims to Support & Showcase potentially great Ideas/Talent from Inner India by reaching out in their own State/City (7 Cities). It is to enable them making their ideas developed into Apps/Infographics primarily by use of Open Government Data around the themes of Drinking Water& Sanitation, Transport, Education, Crime and Health to a stage, after which it can be evaluated by jury and be selected for Prizes and future support/funding.
Speaking on the occasion, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “The government is committed to make best use of big data in establishing rule of precision governance. While doing so every care would be taken to ensure that strict privacy rights of individuals are protected. However, unauthorised use of data would be dealt with iron-hand to ensure that nothing comes in the way of making data-analytics a national movement.”
“The big data analytics should focus on poor & under privileged and facilitate inclusive growth. While aiming at taking lead in data analytics it must be ensured that technology is inclusive, affordable, transformative & developmental. #OpenGovDataHack being taken up in seven states would catalyse further start up movement. I would like assure you all that the Government is determined to hand-hold successful start-ups and make it a big success.” added Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, said, “The open data platform is a huge opportunity for the country and a brilliant foundation in place to have so much of data already being made available. However, there is big gap between data being available and data being utilized. I believe there are not only gaps, but we have serious opportunities available. A lot of intellectual effort needs to go into creating that value. On one side, we have this wonderful platform in reach our country, on the other side there is this huge opportunity for new services that can be made available, and thirdly there is massive resource available to us in terms of creative young minds in institutions, industry, start-ups across the country. I think Hackathon is a great opportunity, it fits in to our start-up movement as well, and I hope that our youngsters will be able to not only come out with new ideas, they will be able to provide valuable services to departments, to citizens, to communities across the country.”
The workshops will be organized for Stakeholders Sensitization, identifying Problem Statements and Data Gathering at respective cities. Students, Community, Startups, Academia, and Industry etc. can participate.
The #OpenGovDataHack will being with the oonsite City Challenge, a 24 hours Hackathon event will be held at 7 centres/ institutes/ organizations across Hackathon cities on different weekends. The participating teams will be required to submit Apps prototypes and Info-graphics. Selected Apps prototypes from all seven onsite city Centre and online submissions will be taken forward for App development. Each team will be given 2 months of mentorship/incubation to develop the App, post which the teams will submit the final Apps for evaluation.
The apps will be evaluated by a panel of jury comprised of the members from the Community, Government, Academia and Industry etc., and the shortlisted teams will be invited for a presentation on the App. The Hackathon process will conclude with an International conference on Open Data, wherein the winners of the Apps Challenge will be awarded.
