Smart India Hackathon (Hardware ) 2019 Winners

Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2019 is the third nationwide initiative by Ministry of HRD, AICTE, Persistent Systems, i4c and Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini,  to provide students a platform to solve some of pressing problems we face in our daily lives, and thus inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mind-set of problem solving. In SIH 2019, the students also had the opportunity to work on challenges faced within the private sector organisations and create world class solutions for some of the top companies in the world.

This year’s SIH Involves 1 Lakh+ technical students, 3000+ technical institutions, 200+ organizations from across India. It is World’s biggest Hardware hackathon, wherein Technology Students across India compete to creatively solve problems and offer technical solutions. The event provides opportunity to harness expertise of students from IISc, IITs, NITs and AICTE/UGC approved institutions.

The SIH 2019 posed problem statement under 11 Themes like Smart Communication, Health care & Bio Medical devices, Agriculture & Rural development, Food Technology, Robotics, Smart vehicles to name a few. There were over 20,000 teams that applied for the Hackathon (Hardware) of which 250 teams were shortlisted for the Grand Finale held between 08 to 12 July 2019. These events were conducted in 18 Nodal Centres like IITs, NITs and in a few private colleges. IIT Indore was the Nodal Centre for Smart Communication and Food Technology. There were five finalists under both the category, and winner, first runner up and second runner up were declared for this event. Team bBook from MVJ College of Engineering, Bengaluru were the winners at IIT Indore. They won a trophy and a cash prize of ₹100,000/-. The team designed and developed a smart device that can help the visually impaired to access all digital as well as printed books. The first runner up was the team from Institute of Chemical Technology Mumbai and the second runner up was the team from Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurugram, Haryana.

bBook, is a small lightweight device which converts text to braille in real time. This will enable the visually impaired to read any text medium in braille format in real time just by placing bBook over it. bBook can also download the latest news articles and magazines of interest to the user, and make it available in braille format. A specially designed audio interface is available which enables the user to control bBook with mere audio commands. bBook is an affordable and easy-to-use device that gives the power of literacy to the visually impaired and bridge the gap between them and the people gifted with sight