Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver an address at the grand finale of the Smart India Hackathon 2020 (Software) tomorrow, according to the Education Ministry formerly known as Human Resource Development Ministry.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the grand finale of the largest ever online hackathon in the world, from 7 pm onwards on August 1, 2020, through video-conference," the ministry said in a statement.

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' said earlier today that the grand finale of the Smart India Hackathon 2020 will be held from August 1 to August 3.

"Students would have the opportunity to work on challenges faced by government departments and private sector organisations for which they can offer out-of-the-box and world-class solutions," the ministry said.

The ministry has clarified the finale will be held online due to the coronavirus outbreak.

What is Smart India Hackathon 2020 (Software)?

Smart India Hackathon is an initiative by the Education Ministry to help in identifying new and disruptive technological innovations which will be useful in solving the many problems faced by the country.

It is a non-stop (marathon) digital product development competition in which problems are constantly thrown at technology students who have to keep solving them via innovation means.

It is expected that more than 100,000 students would be participating in the competition. The students would be from 37 central government departments, 17 state governments and 20 industries. Each new problem will carry a prize of Rs 1,00,000 for the first place, Rs 75,000 for the second place and Rs 50,000 for the third place. Total of 273 problems will be dealt with during the competition.