Smart India Hackathon 2018: Project to digitise railway ticketing process bags first prize in Pune
“We came to know that the railways spend ₹1.2 lakh per train on paper charts, and there are around 12,500 trains in India. So the project was to reduce this cost of paper by eliminating the pen-paper work in the railways and digitising it. The application was for ticket collectors (TC), whereby a simple QR code already present in the railway tickets will enable the TC to track and record the tickets. And all this will be possible without any extra effort, but just the app that can scan the QR code,” said 21-year old Yash Bhayre, third year student of Computer Science engineering branch from Bhopal. His team, Logic View, had won the first prize.
A project which would reduce the use of paper in the Indian Railways and digitise the entire ticketing process, is what bagged the first prize at Smart India Hackathon 2018 which concluded on Saturday. Bringing student innovation one step closer to impactful change in society, six students of the Oriental Institute of Science and Technology, Bhopal, were awarded ₹1 lakh for the project at College of Engineering, Pune (COEP).
“We came to know that the railways spend ₹1.2 lakh per train on paper charts, and there are around 12,500 trains in India. So the project was to reduce this cost of paper by eliminating the pen-paper work in the railways and digitising it. The application was for ticket collectors (TC), whereby a simple QR code already present in the railway tickets will enable the TC to track and record the tickets. And all this will be possible without any extra effort, but just the app that can scan the QR code,” said 21-year old Yash Bhayre, third year student of Computer Science engineering branch from Bhopal. His team, Logic View, had won the first prize.
In total, 46 teams had competed under the Student Innovation category, with six coming out victorious. Team Apostrophe from Sarvajanik College of Engineering and Technology, Surat; followed by Team Fashion from KK Somnath College of Engineering, Mumbai; were the first and second runners-up at the event.
Another team, Kryptonite6, who had worked on creating an application to minimise food wastage, won the first consolation prize. One of the members, Praveen KS, second year Computer Science engineering student from St Joseph's College of Engineering and Technology, Palai,Kerala, said, “We got the idea through a personal experience where we saw a great amount of food being wasted during a family gathering. The thought was to create a user-friendly application that can minimise wastage and provide food to those who need it. So, primarily through the cross-platform application, the donor can upload the availability of food at a particular location, and those who need it, be it individuals or NGOs, can track and reach the location to collect it. It works like the UBER and OLA applications.”
As future plans, they wish to expand the application, with a disaster option attached to it, so that anyone in need of food during a crisis situation can call for help and those capable can provide it.
This year, more than 17,000 teams participated for two editions (software and hardware), with 12,047 teams for the software edition alone. Each team consisted of six students and two mentors from industry or academia, and were given 340 problem statements across 24 themes identified by government departments which include environment, space, information technology, health and education.
BOX:
Winner: Team Logic View, Oriental Institute of Science and Technology, Bhopal
1st runner uo: Team Apostrophe, Sarvajanik College of Engineering and Technology, Surat, Gujarat
2nd runner up: Team Fashion, KK Somnath College of Engineering, Mumbai
1st consolation: Team Krytonite6, St. Joseph's College of Engineering and Technology, Palai, Kerala
Over 17,000 teams (Software+ Hardware edition)
Each team: 6 students + 2 mentors (academia or industry)
Problem statements: 340
Themes: 24
