Moving ahead of desktop and laptop computers, State Government is planning to bring governance to the fingertips (through touch screens) of common man with applications for smartphones and other handheld computers.
To this end, IT and e-Governance Department organised App Hackathon-2015, an Android-based mobile application developing competition, using open standards like Aadhar. Beginning this Saturday, around 100 budding programmers from all over the state contended to develop the best mobile apps within 24 hours to convey government services to the people through their smartphones.
The contenders developed mobile applications under various categories – healthcare, government benefits, payments, online and offline methodology and open category, with priority to applications working with Aadhar, as per needs specific to Jharkhand.
“Smartphones are an integral part of our lives today, and therefore, they can be vital in reaching the public with our welfare schemes. To achieve this goal, such events should be organised on a regular basis,” said Chief Minister Raghubar Das during the inaugural session of the Hackathon.
He continued, “There is a gap between the government and the people, they are not aware of the government-run projects for their benefits. And this accounts for our inability to fulfil their expectations, but information technology can bridge this gap; curb corruption and take out the middleman. So, Jharkhand Government is incorporating IT in its working methods to a great extent.”
“We have plans to promote IT setups and start-ups in state, and have selected an executing agency for this purpose. Within a month, we will be presenting our IT policy. Progress is being made towards setting up IT parks and IT city in various districts of Jharkhand. Soon the state will emerge as an IT hub,” Das said.
Soon, those with ideas will find ample opportunities in state itself, assured IT Secretary Sunil Kumar Barnwal. “We are planning to start incubation centres where youth can experiment with their ideas and give a concrete shape to those profitable to the society. Efforts like Hackathon and others will be made in future to promote best upcoming professionals from Jharkhand,” he said.
“The domains included here lack on aspect, security or policing. Along with making India digital, we need to make it digitally secure too,” said ADG (Operations) SN Pradhan. In reply to this, Das assured that the upcoming It policy will give adequate emphasis on security too.
Meanwhile, the second round of IT Talent Search was conducted in Delhi Public School Ranchi on Saturday, jointly by IT and e-Governance Department, School Education and literacy Development Department and MICA Educational Group. 650 students of government and private schools of Ranchi took this test in which they were tested on their programming and application skill with modern hardware-software facilities of IT. The final round will be held on November 14, 2015.