Team Of SOA Students Win Prestigious Smart India Hackathon 2020 Competition

Bhubaneswar: A six-member students team from Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), faculty of engineering and technology of the SOA Deemed to be University here, won the prestigious Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2020 contest by providing solutions to eradicate crime through digital means.

Christened as X-Legion Coders, the team comprised of Ankita Satapathy, Abhinaba Ray, Sourav Bera, Ellora Mehena, Pritam Kar and G Madhabananda Patra. They are first and second-year students of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and Computer Science and Information Technology (CSIT).

The team had to first compete in an internal 24-hour long Hackathon, called HackerWar 2.0, conducted by SOA in February. They were shortlisted by SIH 2020 for the national event and subsequently qualified for the three-day grand finale, which was held from August 1 to 3.

In the finals, the team was given the problem statement by Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD), who asked them to solve issues regarding community-oriented policing — also referred to as digital policing — and help improve police-citizen relationship.

X-Legion Coders came out with flying colours to bag the first prize of Rs 1 lakh.

Considered to be the world’s largest Open Innovation model, SIH 2020 is organized every year by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. This time, it had to be held online because of the COVID-19 pandemic.