Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address over 10,000 students on Saturday on the occasion of the ‘Grand Finale’ of ‘Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2020’ that seeks to ‘inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mindset of problem-solving’ among students in the country.

The Prime Minister’s address over a specially built advanced platform will take place through video conferencing. “The Grand Finale of the software edition this year is being organized online by connecting all the participants throughout the nation together over a specially-built advanced platform,” a PMO note stated here.

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“The Smart India Hackathon is a nationwide initiative to provide students with a platform to solve some of the pressing problems we face in our daily lives, and thus inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mindset of problem-solving. It has proved to be extremely successful in promoting out of-the-box thinking in young minds,” the Prime Minister Office further added.

In the grand finale of the software Hackathon this year over 10,000 students will compete to solve 243 problem statements from 37 central government departments, 17 state governments and 20 industries.

More than 4.5 lakh students had taken part In the first round of Smart India Hackathon 2020. Since the beginning of the first edition of Smart India Hackathon 2017 the event evoked overwhelming support from students from all over the country.

The first Hackathon saw participation of 42000 students which increased to 1 lakh in 2018 and to 2 lakh in 2019. Earlier, the Human Resource Minister now Education Minister after the HRD ministry was rechristened as Ministry of Education, recently, had chaired a high-level meeting on Smart India Hackathon (SIH).

He has deliberated in detail on the outcome of the previous hackathons. The grand finale of the Smart India Hackathon will be held from August 1-3.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address the participants on the first day. Each of the problem statements will carry a prize money of Rs 1 lakh. The student innovation theme will have three winners- 1st, 2nd and 3rd with prize money if Rs 1 lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively.