The students of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) have won the first prize in Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2022 Grand Finale organised at the Nodal Centre at Birla Institute of Technology – Mesra, Ranchi. The Ministry of Education (MoE) has organised the Smart India Hackathon 2022 Grand Finale on August 25-26, 2022. The winning team was led by Kunal Ambasta who is the students of MCA programme of IGNOU. Other team members included Jvoti Kumari, Gaytri Pandit, Aayushi Kumari, Sushmita Das, and Sonika Jaiswal students of BCA programme of IGNOU won the first prize of Rs 1 lakh by MoE in the SIH 2022.

Another team IgnASM led by Sheetal Thapa, PhD student of IGNOU emerged as the first runner up at the SIH-2022 Nodal center at Kongu Engineering College, Erode, Tamil Nadu. The team included Ravikanth (BCA) and Poonam Rajput (CVAA). They worked on the problem statement to develop positive emotions among students across all age groups for holistic development and well-being in the Student Innovation category.

"The team SIGSEGV with members including Satish Kumar Mishra (MCA), Ananya Singh (MCA), Harsh(MCA) and Nadeem Ahmad (BCA) participated at the VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering & Technology, Hyderabad. They worked on the problem statement under miscellaneous categories. The team developed a No-Code Chatbot Builder using AI/ML, Cloud Computing, Blockchain technology," IGNOU said in a release.

A total of five teams were nominated from IGNOU to participate at the National level in the SIH 2022 organized by the MoE and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Out of which three teams participated in the SIH 2022 Grand Finale held at different Nodal Centres at Ranchi, Erode and Hyderabad.

To select and nominate students for the national level SIH 2022, the National Centre for Innovation in Distance Education (NCIDE) IGNOU organised an internal Hackathon, Smart IGNOU Hackathon-2022 from March 11 to 14, 2022. Eight teams presented their ideas and proposals in the Smart IGNOU Hackathon, of these, five teams were selected on the basis of their work and performance, and nominated for the National level SIH-2022.

SIH 2022 organized by the MoE and AICTE, is a nationwide product development competition, where problem statements are posed to participants for innovative solutions to some of the pressing problems we face in our day-to-day life.