TIRUCHI
A national-level COVID -19 Bioinformatics Online Hackathon currently under way at the University College of Engineering, Anna University, BIT Campus, Tiruchi, is focussing on developing community healthcare Apps for supporting needy people during the pandemic across the globe.
Slated for culmination on May 9, the 10-day online hackathon for full stackers was inaugurated on Wednesday through video-conferencing by M.K. Surappa, Vice-Chancellor, Anna University, Chennai, and D. Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education.
As many as 773 teams from across the country are participating. For this purpose, Anna University has collaborated with Spoken Tutorial Project of IIT Bombay, Indian Culture project, Madras School of Social Work for community aspects, DERBI foundation - a start-up accelerator from Bengaluru, and Climate Smart Technologies.
The hackathon was unique in that web-based Apps would be developed for factoring in behavioural centric solutions based on culture of the vast mass of the people across the country especially people in village and remote areas, Prof. Surappa said.
Clinicians who are facing challenging situations while treating people affected by COVID’19, he observed. Involvement of scientists and engineers would pave the way for finding solutions to counter the pandemic.
Prof. Sahasrabudhe said the trend of colleges coming up with innovative ideas to develop sanitiser, PPE and ventilators at low cost was encouraging. Developing Apps at a crucial time and creating an information hub is the need of the hour for our country. Similar events such as Smart India Hackathon, IDEAthon, and SAMADHAN provided an opportunity for the participants to showcase their talents, he said.
Jeevanandhan Duraisamy, Founder CEO, Climate Smart Technologies, Coimbatore, shared his experience in tackling bird flu. Merging ICT with periphery segment of the sciences was crucial at this juncture, he said.
S. Raja Samuel, Principal, Madras School of Social Work, Chennai, and Lakshmi Jagannathan, COO, DERBI Foundation, DSU Innovation Campus, Bengaluru, also took part.
The AICTE, Innovation Cell of Ministry of Human Resources Development, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Directorate General of Training, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, and National Institute Entrepreneurship Small Business Development (NIESBUD) have endorsed the event, T. Senthilkumar, Dean University College of Engineering BIT Campus, Anna University, Tiruchi, said.