Press Information Bureau

Building upon the ideation and guidance from the Prime Minister and under the aegis of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), National Informatics Centre (NIC), IEEE Computer Society and Oracle have come together yesterday to announce Gov Tech-Thon 2020, to incubate new ideas, boost innovation and use technology in agriculture and allied sectors.

Shri Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology announced the Hackathon by releasing the Online Registration portal ‘https://www.computer.org/education/oracle_hackathon_2020’. Shri Sawhney appreciated the efforts by National Informatics Centre, IEEE and Oracle for coming together to organise this hackathon. He pointed out that the youngsters are an important part of India’s digital ecosystem and he looks forward to their participation in the hackathon and their solutions to the challenges.

Dr. Neeta Verma, Director General, NIC in her address at the release of online portal for 'Gov Tech-Thon 2020', said that the Hackathon is a step towards developing a digital ecosystem with more emerging technologies. She stated that Gov Tech-Thon 2020 will spur a lot of ideas, proof of concepts, working models for innovation and inclusion in Government services.

Dr Savita Dawar, Deputy Director General, NIC gave a brief introduction to the five challenges including AI based crop recommendations , Blockchain based seed certification, Automated vigilance in exams/tests, Automated fitness check process for commercial vehicles and Easy document uploads , from Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in India which require immediate solutions.

Shri Harish Mysore, Senior Director and Head of IEEE India Operations said, “IEEE has been empowering engineers for over a century, helping advance technology across sectors. This partnership with NIC and Oracle will help increase the use of technology, reduce the digital divide in agriculture, transportation and education and will help us deliver better governance to citizens of India.”

Shri Shailender Kumar, Regional Managing Director, Oracle India, said “To transform India into a digital and knowledge economy, we must first digitally empower all its people, key economic sectors and allied communities. We are proud to join hands with NIC and IEEE for Gov Tech-Thon 2020 and look forward to supporting local innovation in all key areas identified.”

Gov Tech-Thon 2020, a pan India 36 hours virtual Hackathon, to be organised from 30 October to 1^st November, 2020. The Hackathon will be facilitated by IEEE, a trusted voice for engineering, computing and technology information. Registrations for Gov Tech-Thon 2020 are open. 

The virtual hackathon is open to students, working professionals, startups, freelance technologists, faculty, and other IT service firms in India. During the hackathon, participants will receive mentorship and advice from technical experts from NIC, IEEE and Oracle, as well as senior domain experts from the Ministries of Agriculture, Education and Transport Departments, Government of India.

Participating teams will have access to the latest tools from Oracle, Oracle Autonomous Database, built-in and easy-to-use cloud security, and compute – to help them develop prototypes that are practical and scalable. Additionally, they will be able to leverage open source technologies that bring benefits of high performance, reliability and data security.

About National Informatics Centre (NIC)

National Informatics Centre (NIC) is attached office of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). NIC was established in 1976, and has rich experience in providing ICT and eGovernance support to the Government for the last 4 decades and helping bridge the digital divide. It has emerged as a promoter of digital opportunities for sustainable development. NIC spearheaded “Informatics-Led-Development” by implementing ICT applications in social and public administration and facilitates electronic delivery of services to the government (G2G), business (G2B), citizen (G2C) and government employee (G2E). NIC, through its ICT Network, “NICNET”, has institutional linkages with all the Ministries /Departments of the Central Government, 37 State Governments/ Union Territories, and about 720+ District Administrations of India.

NIC has been closely associated with the Government in different aspects of Governance besides establishing a Nationwide State-of-the-Art ICT Infrastructure, it has also built a large number of digital solutions to support the government at various levels, making the last-mile delivery of government services to the citizens a reality.

About IEEE Computer Society

IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community to innovate for a better tomorrow through its more than 419,000 members in over 160 countries.  For more information about IEEE, please visit www.ieee.org.

The IEEE Computer Society is the premier source for information, inspiration, and collaboration in computer science and engineering. Connecting members worldwide, the Computer Society empowers the people who advance technology by delivering tools for individuals at all stages of their professional careers. For more information about IEEE Computer Society, visit www.computer.org 

About Oracle

The Oracle Cloud offers a complete suite of integrated applications for Sales, Service, Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Supply Chain and Manufacturing, plus Highly Automated and Secure Generation 2 Infrastructure featuring the Oracle Autonomous Database. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at www.oracle.com.

RCJ/M