The first edition of ‘Manipal Hackathon’ was inaugurated at the KEF R&D Auditorium here on Friday. The event, being organised by the Student Council of Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), has finalists from institutes all over the country, including BITS Hyderabad, VIT Vellore, VIT Chennai, and PICT Pune.
Speaking on the occasion, G. Jagadeesha, Deputy Commissioner, who was the chief guest, congratulated the students for their efforts in making the event a success, and also spoke about the need to organise more events such as the hackathon.
In his address, H.S. Ballal, Pro-Chancellor of MAHE, spoke about the importance of promoting and encouraging innovation while also emphasising on the need of using technology to uplift the rural people and to empower women.
The Manipal Hackathon is a software challenge that began in May 2019. Inspired by the ‘Smart India Hackathon’, it aims to find answers to pertinent social issues by using simple programming solutions. Initially, the competition had 1,500 participants from across the country. Of these, 125 participants eventually made it to Manipal for the 36-hour final challenge.
