Coding made simpler: Hyderabad's Mission Code Project hackathon saw participation from 4,000 students

As a part of Mission Code Project, this 12-hour hackathon saw participation from 4,000 students and was organised across 20 different locations
Students at the hackathon | (Pic: CST)
Students at the hackathon | (Pic: CST)

Coding is no more a mere skill, it's a language one needs to be eloquent in, especially those who aspire to bring about a change in the world through technology. To make this language second-nature, a school-level hackathon was organised among schools of the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society(TSWREIS). As a part of Mission Code Project, this 12-hour hackathon saw participation from 4,000 students and was organised across 20 different locations — from Shaikpet in Hyderabad to Addagudur in Nalgonda district and Mulug in Medak to Bellampally in Adilabad. Talk about massive!   

All the involved organisations taught coding to 4,000 children for 100 hours during the past one and a half month and the hackathon was the grand finale

So, who were the organisers of this brainwave? Sunitha Infovision, an EdTech company, in association with city-based start-up Secure Space who brought on-board Centinel Spark Technologies (CST), who specialise in education services. Rohit Yadhati, the CEO of CST, tells us the most fascinating fact about Mission Code Project — before the hackathon, students were taught algorithms, Python and other programming languages without computers! "If we start depending on computers, how many students can we really teach? So, we removed them from the equation," explains the young CEO, "People say that it is India's time to shine bright and this is because of the power of our youth who need to be adept at finding solutions to our problems." 

Brainstorming time: Students discussing a problem at the hackathon (Pic: CST)

On D-Day, students were split into groups of five and from 9 am to 10 pm, were seen vigourously brainstorming to come up with solutions to the problems allotted to them, which included waste management, conservation of electricity, reduce food wastage and much more. Innovation ensued, but for Yadhati, one of the most heart-warming moments during the hackathon was when he asked a girl (as a matter of fact, 60% of the participants were girls) what she'd planned to do with what she'd learnt and she replied that she would try to teach it to her parents. "The fact that students are able to identify problems and apply multiple solutions to solve them gives us a lot of hope," says the alumnus of Keshav Memorial Institute of Technology. 

All in a row: Afzal, Anjaneyulu, Gopinath and Rohit, the team who organised the hackathon | (Pic: CST)

Because certain schools were situated in far-flung areas, CST had to plan ahead to ensure that the equipment and facilitators reached the schools on time. But of course, nothing stopped them. Rohit gives most of the credit to the Secretary of TSWREIS, Dr R S Praveen Kumar and his vision. "He wanted coding to be the fourth language of children and it's true, to survive in today's world, you need to learn coding as a language, not as a subject or an activity," concludes Yadhati. 

Let's ideate 

Here are some of the bright ideas that were developed during the hackathon:

- A child had thought of building a structure on a one-acre farm and start vertical farming on it. He was trying to figure out the number of storeys we would require

- Another child came up with the idea of a self-cleaning bathroom. Not only will pipes supply acid and phenyl to disinfect and clean the bathroom, but hot air will be sprayed at the end so that it dries up quickly

For more on them, clcik on tswreis.in

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