New Delhi, March 30 (IANS) Innovation and out of the box thinking are the key to realising the dream of ‘New India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here on Friday while addressing the grand finale of the Smart India Hackathon via video conferencing.

“Innovation is not merely a word or an event. It’s an ongoing process. You can innovate only when you understand a problem and try to find out its solution. We must go to the root of the problem and find out of the box solutions…In the era where knowledge is power, innovation is the driver of growth.

“When I see the young generation busy in innovation with enthusiasm like this, my resolve for ‘New India’ gets stronger. In the 21st century we will be able to get India the place in the world it deserves. Your energy is the driving force to fulfil the dream of New India,” he said.

The Prime Minister gave students the mantra of “IPPP” or “Innovate, Patent, Produce and Prosper”.

“These four steps will lead our country towards faster development. For that we will have to innovate and turn our innovations in patents, making our production smoother and taking products speedily to the people will make them prosper,” he said, adding: “But we must look for need based innovations not greed based innovations.”

The two-day finale of the Hackathon is being held at 28 nodal centres across the country. There are 1,296 entries selected for the finals out of more than 17,400 teams with participation of around one lakh students of engineering, management and MCA.

Modi said that his government aims to introduce students at a young age to the technology of future such as Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Block Chain technology and Robotics etc even before they reach engineering colleges.

“If you have developed an innovative mind in the teenage, half the job is done,” he said, urging participants to explore the possibility of multiple sector Hackathons like Health-Hackathon, Law-Hackathon, Architecture-Hackathon, Agriculture-Hackathon and Rural Hackathon.

“We need innovative agriculturists, engineers, architects, doctors, lawyers, managers for these Hackathon. Such Hackathons will provide a platform to budding talents,” Modi said.

The Prime Minister also interacted with the participants of Smart India Hackathon across various centres.

Earlier in the day, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar launched the finale here and asked the participants to devise solutions for making exams “leak-proof”.

He said though the problem was not a subject of this year’s competition, he asked the students to “work on the solution of full proof examination” after the competition gets over.

This the second edition of the competition which was first held last year and is organised by the All India Council for Technical Education for the HRD Ministry.

The competition comprises of two parts — Software Hackathon and Hardware Hackathon. The final round of Hardware Hackathon competition will be conducted in June.

Javadekar said that 27 innovations made by students during the last year Smart India Hackathon are in the final stage and ready for deployment. He said that this year, with the participation of more students and more teams, 100 more innovations will come out this year.

–IANS
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