Tech Mahindra, NITI Aayog and Pune Smart City Development Corporation Launch First Smart City Hackathon

Tech Mahindra announced its collaboration with NITI Aayog and Pune Smart City Development Corporation to launch the first ‘Smart City Hackathon’ at the Pune University campus for developers and startups across India.

Pune Idea Factory Foundation (PIFF), a wholly owned subsidiary of Pune Smart City Develop Corporation Limited (PSCDCL), has been set up as a non-profit organization dedicated to boosting the start-up ecosystem in Pune. To drive its innovation agenda, PIFF has drawn a detailed roadmap encompassing multiple initiatives.

The aim of this hackathon is to innovate, crowdsource and develop solutions for issues like urban mobility, solid waste management, water supply, citizen safety & security. The hackathon will comprise of developers including working professionals, startups and students, who can participate as individuals or in teams of maximum five people.

The Hackathon participants will be encouraged to put on the technology hats and provide sustainable solutions for the city. The solution can either be an up-and-running product or an innovative idea with a working prototype. To make this Hackathon a level playing field for all, the teams will be evaluated on two separate tracks, namely Solutionthon and Ideathon, depending upon the maturity of their proposed solution, with the top solutions likely to be deployed in the city.

Commenting on the launch, Anna Roy, Advisor, Niti Aayog, said, “NITI is very happy to collaborate with Pune Smart City and a technology leader like Tech Mahindra to explore how frontier technologies can be leveraged to address city-specific issues. The rate of urbanization being witnessed in India and given the commitment of the government to improve the quality of life of citizens it becomes very important to take such initiatives. Through this hackathon, we propose to involve the citizens of Pune in the future development of the city and to attract innovators to provide solutions for its various problems. Thus, we not only address the urbanization issues but also help nurture the research and innovation ecosystem in the country”.

“Pune is a key centre for Tech Mahindra, as the city has offered us both good talent and avenues to grow. We are humbled by this opportunity to serve this city through our core competency of technology, and facilitate a mélange of ideas to solve urban governance challenges. The Smart City Hackathon through co-creation and co-innovation will enable the creation of an ecosystem where next-gen technologies like Artificial Intelligence are applied to make citizen’s life easier”, said Jagdish Mitra, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer, Tech Mahindra.

Rajendra Jagtap, CEO of Pune Smart City expressed optimism at the development and said, “We are proud of our association with NITI Aayog and excited to partner with a technology leader like Tech Mahindra. We live in a technology-driven era and there are greater opportunities than ever before to explore and innovate. This is an advent of the power of intelligence from all sections of society to pull together innovative solutions and co-create a liveable, secure and resilient space. I encourage start-ups, entrepreneurs and various sectors to come together to solve issues affecting our cities and the nation at-large.”

Speaking on this first of its kind Smart City hackathon in Pune, Manojit Bose, Chief Knowledge Officer of Pune Smart City said, ‘I am very happy to welcome our technology partner Tech Mahindra on board. Co-innovating solutions by leveraging the strength of crowdsourcing have met with a good degree of success in varied parts of the globe. We look forward to active participation from the developer and startup fraternity in helping resolve various sectoral challenges leveraging the power of technology.”

This announcement comes on the back of Tech Mahindra’s continued commitment towards nation building and creating future-ready sustainable solutions. As part of its TechMNxt charter, Tech Mahindra is focused on leveraging the power of NewAge Delivery platform, co-create solutions to build a smart future. The much-awaited offline hackathon event will be held in Savitribai Phule Pune University campus on September 29, 2018.