CIE Hackathon June 2020 – Decypher: A Better Tomorrow

Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) organized “Decypher: A Better Tomorrow”, a 48-hour virtual hackathon in association with the Entrepreneurship Cell (ECell) for all students at PES University. The hackathon started at 5 PM on Jun 12 and ran 48 straight hours ending on Jun 14 evening. The objective of Decypher was to enable cross-disciplinary teams to come up with innovative product &/or solution ideas that could make a difference in the post-COVID world.

The event saw excellent participation with 80 teams comprising of 240+ enthusiastic participants with the following details:

242 students	80 teams	9 branches	2 campuses
22 Mentors	5 Judges	5 Prelude Talks	3 Speakers
1 Knowledge Partner	2 Recreational Events	10 Student Organizers	3 Alumni Supporters

Decipher was a success thanks to the zeal of all the teams, the insightful speaker sessions during the Hackathon, including the highly accomplished Silicon Valley entrepreneur, innovator, and technologist BV Jagadeesh. Twenty-two Mentors (18 highly accomplished professionals from startup/industry/academia and 5 exceptional CIE PESU students) guided the participants throughout the event. IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS) was the Knowledge Partner for the event.

The speaker sessions were insightful, informative, and engaging with many participants attending even though they were busy working on their ideas. Participants were energized and motivated at the end of each speaker session. The event was preceded by a set of 5 sessions (across 5 days) titled ‘Prelude’, which served as knowledge sessions conducted on the popular Instagram Live platform.

Participants showed high energy and dedication over the entire 48-hours as they took their concept/idea to a proposed product/solution including creating a video of their prototype. Student-power was to be seen everywhere as PES Alumni supported the event from the get-go.

In addition to work, there was also play! Recreational sessions like Housie gave a breather for the participants from long sessions of brainstorming, designing, and coding. Another session on Day 2 was a huge success with the participants which had PES student, Sanju Koshy, belt out popular numbers on the PES ECell Instagram Live channel.

Finally, the judging session commenced at 9 AM on Sunday. Despite being a Sunday, all five judges spent hours looking at the submissions and narrowing it down to the Top 10. These top 10 teams then got to pitch their ideas through an online session watched by all teams. The Finale kicked off at 5 pm, where Prof. Sathya Prasad welcomed the gathering of students, mentors, and judges. The honorable Vice-Chancellor, PES University, Dr. J Suryaprasad, spoke to the audience and lauded the students for their efforts and spurred them to innovate and work towards a better tomorrow.

Over Rs, 50,000 awards were given to the

Top 3 teams:

1st Prize: Ishwar Choudhary and G Shreya, 3rd year RR campus CS students (mentored by Tarun Krishnamurthy)
Their idea: Uplifting the lower working class economically through a decentralised, c to c hiring service
2nd Prize: RR campus B.Arch students, Praveen M, Shreya Vadrevu, Geetham P and Sagar A (mentor – Divyadarshan)
Their Proposed Solution was “Revolutionising existing modes of mass transit to provide holistic care and attention during pandemic outbreaks by evolving the existing infrastructure and to also cater as multipurpose solutions through modularity”
3rd Prize: Utkarsh Gupta and Kunal Bhat, both 1st year CS students from RR campus, Divyansh Mitra, 1st year EEE and Jaivarun Reddy, 1st year Mech student (mentored by Saahil Kamath)
The problem they addressed was “In times of crisis, how can teachers engage with students remotely and understand their strengths and weaknesses”

And 3 notable ideas that stood out:

Three 2nd year CS students from the EC campus, Vismaya Anand, Supriya R and Rakesh Sanju (with mentor Parthan M)
Their idea: A smart wrist band for visually impaired people which can be used attached to disposable or reusable gloves
Nagavishnu B K, from 3rd year ECE and Harshitha S, a 3rd year Mech student (mentored by Sreekanth Pallavoor)
Their proposal “VR Avatar as companion for people to maintain good mental health and well-being as an antidote for depression and mental stress”
Third year students from different branches, Himesh Bunga from Civil, Soundarya – CS student, and Suchita Ramesh
Their idea “A platform for alternative medicine with online consultation and doorstep medicines delivery”