Two promising first year students of Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Utkarsh Kumar and Vansh Arora earned rare distinction at ‘Rajasthan Hackathon 3.0’ - the biggest Government hackathon even organised at Udaipur. The students, who were also the youngest participants at the event, signed a contract with the Rajasthan Government worth Rs 15 lakh, which was given by the Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje.
Utkarsh Kumar and Vansh Arora built an Augmented Reality (AR) app (Team Bhai) for tourism, which enhances tourists' experience. Over 1,800 participants gave a demonstration of 450 different projects in the preliminary states and 13 of them were shortlisted for the finals. Some of the participants who competed in the event also included professionals working in big industries and also former students of IITs and IIMs. “Most participants were experienced and were also older. We did not expect to win the hackathon. It is our biggest achievement,” said Utkarsh Kumar on winning the biggest Government hackathon in India.
“Our AR app will help in enhancing experience of tourists as it explains the story behind the places they visit with its help. Our App will be the only augmented reality company to have Government validation,” said Vansh Arora.
On the inspiration behind the startup Utkarsh Kumar said, “My mother is fond of history and she is the reason behind making the AR app a reality.” The team will start with Rajasthan tourism and will move to the other Indian States.
The App can help not only tourism, but also education sector to make learning more interesting. The team went second to pitch and floored the judges, who seemed really impressed with the idea and the demonstration. ‘Wow’ is how Nick Booker, co-founder IndoGenus reacted to the prototype and Mohandas Pai, Chairman of Manipal Global Education also lauded the app of the VIT students, stating that they were brilliant.
‘Rajasthan Hackathon 3.0’ was conducted to give a platform for enterprising youth, startups and entrepreneurs across the nation and to think out of the box on more than nine topics including Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Big Data, Internet of Things, Bio-informatics, Bhamashah, E-MITRA, Tourism. Participants were judged by Mohandas Pai, Pulak Ghosh, Professor at IIM Bangalore and Nick Booker. They will now be their mentors to build their initiative.
They are also given a chance to get incubated under iStart, a Rajasthan Government incubation programme. Other notable guests were the Director Public Affairs of Uber, MD of Autodesk, the Country Head of Oracle, CEO of OYO Rooms, CEO of Zoomcar, CTO of PepsiCo and Director, Startups and National Technology Officer of Microsoft.