On the 29th of March, 6 Students, 2 Faculty Co-ordinators, and the VBIT Brand traveled all the way to Noida to attend the Smart India Hackathon that the team was proudly shortlisted for. What followed the landing in Noida is now history engraved on the bricks of VBIT for the years to come as a new benchmark. Vignana Bharathi Institute of Technology has always been famous for one thing, the everlasting support extended towards their students as they express their desire to be a part of any event, in the college, outside the college and even outside their home state. 

As we talk to Hanisha Amuri, one of the team members from VBIT that bagged the 2nd prize in the National Hackathon conducted by the Government of India, she expresses her gratitude to the team leader, Vishnu Panjala from CSE-D who formed the team, handpicking the best teammates possible and then the team manoeuvred their way through the 400+ problem statements that were made available to them. Although this was a nightmare for the team, to say the least, each member of the team played a key role in keeping each other motivated and pitching in their views in the best interest of the team.  

As we talked to the team, one thing became very much clear, the role played by the institute in the moral, motivational, technical and even financial support extended by them. The team members were clearly being enthusiastic about the whole project since the very first day that they started, and the college was quick in recognizing this effort by the student and thus extended all possible support beyond the ability and helped them achieve what they have. Vignana Bharathi Institute of Technology played an instrumental role by allocating a wonderful Mentor to the team that needed guidance through every walk of the competition and this helped them get the technical extension that is always welcomed. 

The project exhibited by the team played a noble role which concerns the same niche as StuMagz, Students! The Android and iOS apps developed by the team help in Connecting student volunteers with the government schemes that are otherwise unknown to the students due to lack of information transfer in the remote areas. The hybrid app developed by the team helps the interested members in knowing and registering for the available schemes by the state and the central government that are locally segregated by location that the user pertains to. This app was designed with remote locations in mind and was developed post personal interaction with students and management from Sikkim and North-east regions of the vastly varied Nation. This helped the team understand the requirements of the students and then go ahead to develop an app that would perfectly cater to the needs of the students.  

The team unanimously agreed that each stage brought in new issues, however, team spirit played a major role in keeping them motivated through the ups and downs without losing hope at any point. The starting stages of the app development were aided with lessons from YouTube and then the team went on to implement the latest technologies such as Angular JS, Ionic Framework etc and this being a new form of implementation, helped them in keeping themselves pumped up as they found it vastly interesting to learn and experiment. 

Coming to the hackathon itself, we received a lot of positive feedback and the team didn’t hesitate in complimenting the excellent organizational skills of the organizers that helped make such a big event a grand success. Each participant from VBIT also appreciated the support extended by their respective faculties as they couldn’t attend a lot of classes and despite that the faculty took in the initiative in helping the participants so that they don’t miss out on anything.  

On asking about the overall experience, the team was quick in giving the answer, the overall experience was “Adventurous” as the team from VBIT likes to claim. We certainly wanted to find out how the team felt when they got to know that they’ve bagged the second price and turns out, they were left speechless as they names were called out and although they had a positive hope, they were spellbound for more than a moment. The team explained their interest to use the money that they won in the competition to further develop, improvise and implement the app in the near future.  

Talking about the Mentors, Arun Ganji Sir and Manga Beetoju ma’am, the team couldn’t be more thankful for the motivational and technical support received from them before, through and after the whole event. The mentors from VBIT were available through each walk of the Hackathon and helped with all the necessary arrangements so that the team can focus on one thing, winning!