The Curtain Raiser of Vimarsh – 2023, aNational Hackathon on 5G technology use for police was conducted in New Delhi today. A teaser and the website https://vimarsh.tcoe.in of the Hackathon Vimarsh 2023 was also launched by the Director General, Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D), Shri Balaji Srivastava. Chairman, Telecom Centre of Excellence, Shri Ajay Kumar Sahu, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), ShriChandraker Bharti, ADG BPR&D, Smt. Anupama Nilekar Chandra, Director  (Modernisation), BPR&D, Smt. Rekha Lohani and CEO, Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Shri Rajesh Kumar were present during the event.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and guidance of Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah, building a Cyber Safe India is one of the top priorities of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Government of India is fully committed to augment the technology prowess of our Law Enforcement Agencies and create a cyber- safe country as cyber security has become an essential aspect of security related affairs, internationally.

BPR&D has been nominated Ministry of Home Affairs’ Centre of Excellence for the purpose of 5G applications use cases within MHA. Accordingly, BPR&D is conducting a Hackathon on 5G for the purpose of developing tools for addressing the challenges and issues being faced by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs). In this Hackathon, 9 Problem Statements have been formulated and the Department of Telecom (DOT) with its subsidiary Telecom Centre of Excellence (TCOE) have joined hands with BPR&D to conduct Hackathon with students, startups & MSMEs. The problem statements along with their description through multimedia content will be floated on a dedicated website https://vimarsh.tcoe.in

The Hackathon will involve three stages of ideas screening - Stages I and II shall be done in virtual mode whereas Stage III will be held at nodal centres in physical mode where the 5G testbeds/Private Networks/Labs would be available. The jury for all three stages shall comprise of members from BPR&D, I4C, DOT and Industry.Post completion of Stage III, the final names of one winner for each problem statements with an award money of Rs 1.5 Lakhs will be announced during the Valedictory Session in February 2024.

It would be pertinent  to mention that Rs 2.5 Lakhs has been earmarked for productization of winning ideas/Proof of Concepts (POCs) leading to further incubation/incentivisation & funding to obtain workable tools/solutions for the usage of LEAs.

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RK/AY/ASH/AKS/RR