CODE19, a 72-hour long online hackathon aimed at finding immediate solutions to India’s challenges against the COVID-19 Coronavirus has ended and the winners have been announced. The event was held on April 10 and total prize money of $34,000 has been awarded to the winners.
Ms Asha Jadeja Motwani, the Founder of Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation, stated, “We have been overwhelmed by the quality of entries at CODE19 online hackathon and the deep enthusiasm shown by all the participants. A community of hackers and mentors, especially young students from all parts of the country and around the world, came together to enable India’s fight against Coronavirus. I believe that the qualitative, open-source projects created at this hackathon would help mitigate the impending Corona-inflicted challenges in India. I am also hopeful that the total prize money of $34,000 that was awarded to winning teams will enable them to realize their solutions and bring them to market.”
The first prize was awarded to Abhinand C and Shilpa Rajeev, two students from the Government College of Engineering in Kannur, Kerala. The team were awarded $10,000 for their entry, iClassroom. It created a virtual classroom that connected students with teachers through a social media-type interface for uninterrupted learning.
The second prize of $5,000 was awarded to six students from the Manipal Institute of Technology. The team had developed a solution called TeleVital that captured a patient’s vital statistics remotely via a webcam and a browser, and enabled remote diagnosis of COVID-19 patients. Thereby reducing the risk of infection for healthcare workers.
The third prize was divided into three categories, and then winners of each of these categories were awarded $3,000. These included SoloCoin, a system that gamifies social distancing by awarding solo coins’ to people for staying at home. These can then be redeemed for rewards from various merchants. The second awardee was the COVID19 Fact Checker that checked news by leveraging authentic government, scientific and public health information to bust misinformation about the pandemic. The final awardee was Grape Community, which is an open platform that connects people with their neighbourhood shopkeepers and suppliers.
To know more about the CODE19 hackathon, click here.