Mashup Team13 won the Crack The COVID19 Crisis’ National Online Hackathon co-organized by NASSCOM FutureSkills, IBM and Beatest as part of the Covid19 track of Call for Code 2020 Global Challenge. The team built an AI-powered virtual human healthcare coach which provides the latest information on COVID-19, promotes health literacy, combats misinformation, helps in self-symptom checking, monitors vitals signals, and also acts as a mental therapist providing low-level interventions using CBT techniques. First runner-up Brogrammers developed an auto proctored examination platform that uses face detection and eyeball tracking to reduce exam malpractice and second runner-up Covid Strikers built a solution to tackle migrant workers’ problems by facilitating a smoother interaction, migration requests and raising alarm on fake news.
The hackathon was part of the Covid19 track of Call for Code 2020 Global Challenge, a five-year global initiative created by David Clark Cause with Founding Partner IBM, in partnership with United Nations Human Rights and the Linux Foundation. The event went live on 23rd April, received a total of 26500 participants forming 3875 teams from 580 colleges/universities across 26 states (including J&K, Arunachal, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar, Manipur, Chattisgarh). It is also note-worthy that 39% of the total teams were girls and 22 were all-girls teams. While the COVID-19 pandemic reveals a massive list of issues that requires solving, there were 3 issues that were given as problem statements in this Hackathon on Beatest’s platform; Crisis Communication, Remote Education and Community Cooperation.
All the teams were mentored by 38 experts from IBM through a Slack-based community wherein the participants interacted and engaged on a daily basis to improvise and better their solutions. Technical Sessions, Design Thinking Sessions and other technical tools and resources were provided to the participants for submitting their unique ideas to tackle and manage the present crisis. IBM’s developer community mentored student participants through 9 pre-enablement tech sessions and a Design Thinking workshop to build applications from ideation to actual implementation.
Priya Mallya, Country Leader – Developer Ecosystem, IBM ISA said, “IBM is uniquely positioned to connect leading humanitarian experts and talented developers in developing technology solutions that can save lives and create a better world. We are excited to collaborate with NASSCOM on the Covid19 track of Call for Code 2020 that aims to bring specific solutions to tackle the epidemic up to the global stage. Solutions like Mashup13 will get global recognition from participating in the challenge and guidance in their future development.”
Amit Aggarwal, CEO SSC NASSCOM & Co-architect NASSCOM FutureSkills said “Despite the specter of COVID looming large, there’s no reason to give up on our vision of making India a hub of digital talent. The dominance of technology has never been felt more. A hackathon is a great way to push innovation and prepare students to become future digital leaders. I would like to congratulate all the winners of the challenge. Also would like to thank our partners IBM and Beatest for making this possible. I look forward to see many more multi-stakeholder collaboration like these that spans across Industry, Academia and the Government to empower students and help them build tech skills”
