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If Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expecting the Indo-US Hackathon - a 15-hour marathon software coding session scheduled at the Google headquarters on September 26 - to churn out some best IT solutions for his pet Digital India and Skill India missions, chief minister Raghubar Das will be banking on a similar endeavour to put Jharkhand on the technology map.
Come November 2, the state information department will hold a 24-hour hackathon, bringing together 100 best brains from across the world under one roof to produce IT-enabled solutions to meet the challenges for Digital Jharkhand project.
For the understanding of the layman, hackathon is an event, wherein computer programmers and others involved in software development and hardware development, graphic designers and interface designers collaborate intensively on software projects on a given day.
It is also known as hack day, hackfest or codefest.
The capital event has been named Aadhaar Hackathon that will focus on devising softwares, IT services and apps.
Sources in the state IT department told The Telegraph that the dates were finalised on Wednesday evening.
As of now, the event is to be held at the newly built auditorium at Project Building.
However, the venue, according to sources, might change to the lone five-star hotel in the state capital depending on the sponsorships that the government is able to manage. So far, telecom major Airtel has agreed in principal to offer sponsorship but is yet to confirm anything in writing.
"Aadhaar Hackathon will kick off at 2pm on November 2 and will end at 3pm the next day. The whole idea is to have a gamut of best IT brains, software companies, agencies and organisations working in the field of technology to brainstorm, design and suggest softwares, apps and other tech products for Jharkhand. It can be related to governance, empowerment, easy day-to-day life et al, but should be useful for the state and its people," said state IT director U.P. Sah.
He added that they would shortly start sending invitations to agencies like Nasscom, CII, IT majors, independent top-notch IT experts, among others, for the marathon coding exercise.
The department has already started scouting for a logo for the hackfest, launching an online competition on Thursday evening to tap the best designs worldwide for the upcoming mega event.
For this, it is accepting registrations and designs on the portal, mgov.jharkhand.gov.in, which chief minister Das launched last week as a part of a slew of IT services in the state. "The best design submitted on the website will be used to prepare the logo for the hackathon. The chosen designer will bag a tablet as a token of appreciation," Sah said.
According to him, they were looking forward to over 100 guests from outside besides officials and experts from the state.
"This is the first time that we will be holding such an event. Recently, Bangalore held its own hackathon. The trend is fast catching up to get all brains under one roof to discuss, code and decode IT solutions at a marathon pace within the set time period," he said.
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