BPRD, education min to organise hackathon Manthan-2021 to develop solutions for national security

new delhi: the bureau of police research and development and the education ministry's innovation cell on thursday announced a hackathon "manthan 2021" for youngsters to develop indigenous solutions for national security.       during the 36-hour online hackathon from november 28-december 1, candidates selected from educational institutions and registered start-ups in the country will participate to offer strong, safe and effective technology solutions.     prize money worth rs 40 lakh has been announced for the winning teams.     the bureau of police research and development's additional director general, neeraj sinha, said, “the department has released 20 challenge statements which offer a unique opportunity to all our youngsters to think out-of-the-box and develop innovative concepts for solving some of the daunting problems faced by our security agencies.”    "if we like some ideas, then we will work very closely with those teams and support their implementation, " he said.     the hackathon will have two phases. in the first phase, participants will submit their concepts against the problem statements which they wish to solve on the portal.     these submitted ideas will be evaluated by a group of experts in the field and only innovative ideas will be selected for the finals or second round scheduled from november 28.     during the finals, selected participants will build the solution to demonstrate their concepts and prove to the juries that their ideas are technically feasible and more importantly implementable.    "we have organised many national and international hackathons by collaborating with different agencies as we are keen on offering real life challenges or problems for students to work,” chairman, all india council for technical education (aicte) anil sahasrabudhe said. “we want them to solve problems which are critical for our country and from that perspective we believe that this hackathon is very crucial as it has direct application in strengthening our national security," he said     participants are expected to develop digital solutions under six themes for 20 different challenge statements which were released on thursday using new technologies like artificial intelligence, deep learning, augmented reality, machine learning, for ever-changing security related challenges.