Recently Smart India Hackathon 2023 Grand Finale was held where six students presented the ‘iPark’ application as a solution to urban parking problems. Its algorithm uses Artificial Intelligence and machine vision to recognize real-time parking infringement scenarios. The team presented a functional prototype to the judges.

The AICTE’s ‘Smart India Hackathon 2023’ was an outstanding performance by Sam Varghese, Nishtha Pandya, Suhani Khandelwal, Priyansh Chhablani, Arohi Jain, and Shalom Ram from NMIMS STME Indore. They made it through the national competition as one of the top five finalists who were declared the national winners.

For the final hackathon round participating schools had to conduct internal hackathons selecting their best 30 teams. Among others, their projects are evaluated by judges such as product managers from Wipro and US start-up owners. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended virtually engaging with participants and encouraging them to think innovatively for “Make in India” and “Digital India.”

The STME learned team chose the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs' problem statement on city parking. They had two or three weeks to develop and present this innovation. They found mentors in the NMIMS Indore faculty who were guided by Prof Abhay Deep Seth from STME, NMIM during that period.

The student innovators got a cash prize of INR 1,00,000 and judges’ appreciation that they plan to use to improve their mobile application. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on its part plans to start the nationwide tests of ‘iPark’ in the coming months.

Reflecting on the benefits of the competition, one of the winning team members Sam Varghese singled out global exposure and unique learning opportunities provided through events such as Smart India Hackathon 2023. He also stressed on the valuable platform for knowledge sharing and interaction with students from leading institutions like IITs.

Dr. Anshuman Jaswal, Director of NMIMS Indore commented on the victory at Smart India Hackathon 2023 saying “We welcome the victory of our students at the Smart India Hackathon 2023. iPark is a first-of-its-kind application that uses AI technology to manage parking and traffic adherence and can transform urban infrastructure by decongesting road traffic. We look forward to their collaboration with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.”

Dr. Vikas Khare who is Program Coordinator at STME, NMIMS Indore shared his thoughts about the student's feats saying “The success at the Smart India Hackathon 2023 is the result of the relentless efforts of the students and their fascination towards innovation and technology.”

About STME-Indore

SVKM's NMIMS has a School of Technology, Management, and Engineering (STME), which is a Tier-1 University under Autonomous Universities recognized by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in India. NMIMS Indore provides holistic learning through academic, cultural, literary, and co-curricular activities. Supported by professional faculty mentorship, the campus provides a vibrant atmosphere for learning with countless opportunities. In its journey to excellence, it has consistently maintained academic quality, research orientation, faculty recruitment from leading national and international institutions as well as strong industry linkages thus establishing itself as a premier educational and research institution in the country.