A first-ever Intra-college two-day hackathon, ‘InnovateX Hackathon’ is organised by NMIMS Chandigarh School of Technology Management’s (STME) Matrixx Technical Club and ACM chapter. The hackathon is held under the guidance of STME and Faculty Coordinators Dr. Jagpreet, Dr. Aditya Bakshi, and Dr. Jyotsna Singh, Associate Dean. The theme of the hackathon was ‘Tech for Social Impact’. It was dedicated to harnessing technology for positive social change. The motto of the hackathon is also to urge students to bring out their creative capabilities and develop solutions that have an impact on society. The students of NMIMS Chandigarh STEM came together to collaborate, brainstorm, innovate, and develop prototypes of tech-driven solutions.

The participating students worked on various problem statements such as a Health and Wellness Platform and developed solutions for healthcare services. They also built a Navigation App for Blind People. They designed navigation aids that can help blind people. The brilliant students of STEM built a Financial Empowerment App that facilitates money management and promotes financial literacy on a digital platform. They also built an Education Accessibility Portal that creates tools to enhance accessibility and inclusivity in education. Last but not least, an Accessible Transportation Solutions that builds systems to optimize transportation routes and enhance public transit accessibility.

The domain and technical experts were the judges of the hackathon, Zenmonk Technologies, Mohali, Mr. Kundan Munjal, Chief Operating Officer, and Mr. Anoop Jain, CTO and Enterprise Architect, UCule Computing Pvt Ltd. (FIS), Mohali. Meanwhile, the student coordinators for the event were Mr. Agamjot Singh, Ms. Bhavya Jha, Mr. Anoop Gupta and Mr. Manjot Singh. The two-day coding event saw 8 teams of 5 members each presenting their ideas on one of the themes to mentors and judges. Through three rounds of evaluations of the hackathon, students empathized and defined their problems, and presented their solutions in front of judges in the form of live demonstrations. On the concluding day, the prototypes by the participating groups were evaluated by Mr. Munjal and Mr. Jain. The judging criteria included aspects such as innovation, feasibility, impact, scalability, and presentation quality of the ideas put forth by the students.

The first position was bagged by Team 2 for their Education Accessibility Platform. Led by Agamjot Singh Monga, the team consisted of Manjot Singh Jolly, Aarushi Vashist, Sarisht Sharma, and Saksham Tripathi. Following closely behind, Team 4 clinched the second position with their Finance Management Platform. Bhavya Jha led the team, which included members Taranjot Singh, Raghav Yogi, Ryan Kukreti, and Bhuvnesh Wadhwa.

The unique prototypes presented at the hackathon saw a display of a range of innovative ideas and approaches and showed the students’ dedication to leveraging technology for social good.