Gov-TechThon 2020 -- from October 30 to November 1 -- will be facilitated by IEEE Computer Society.

The virtual hackathon is open to students, working professionals, startups, freelance technologists, faculty, and IT services firms in India.

"The youngsters are an important part of India's digital ecosystem and I look forward to their participation in the hackathon and their solutions to the challenges," Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, said in a statement.

Shortlisted teams will operate virtually. During the hackathon, they will receive mentorship and advice from domain experts from NIC, IEEE Computer Society, Oracle and experts from the Union Agriculture Ministry, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

Participating teams will have access to the latest tools from Oracle, including Oracle Autonomous Database, built-in and easy-to-use cloud security, and compute -- to help them develop prototypes that are practical and scalable, the company said.

Additionally, they will be able to leverage open source technologies that bring in benefits of high performance, reliability and data security.

For Gov-TechThon 2020, NIC has shortlisted five key problem scenarios including Artificial Intelligence-based crop recommendations, Blockchain based seed certification, automated vigilance in exams/tests, automated fitness check process for commercial vehicles and easy document uploads that aims to permit citizens to quickly and efficiently scan and submit necessary documents while availing different government services.

"We realise how technology, including cloud and open source, can play an important role in supporting India's core economic sectors and its communities. For example, to elevate the quality of life for farmers and to ensure increased returns for their produce, we have been pushing for increased use of technology in Indian agriculture," said Neeta Verma, Director General, NIC.

"To transform India into a digital and knowledge economy, we must first digitally empower all its people, key economic sectors and allied communities," said Shailender Kumar, Regional Managing Director, Oracle India.