KLS Gogte Institute completes Smart India Hackathon qualifying round with 168 students

KLS Gogte Institute of Technology in Belagavi completed a two-day internal edition of the Smart India Hackathon on Saturday, drawing 168 students organised into 28 teams who worked to build technology solutions for problems spanning healthcare, agriculture, disaster management and ten other sectors.

The Friday-Saturday event served as a qualifying round for SIH 2026, giving participants hands-on experience in converting identified challenges into working prototypes. Teams tackled assignments in cybersecurity, education, smart automation, transportation, robotics and drones, space technology, governance, and heritage and culture, among other domains.

Industry mentors guide student teams

Six entrepreneurs and industrialists, Niraj Vernekar, Avinash Pauskar, Darshan Mutalikdesai, Raghvendra Patil, Koushal Kedari and Shriniket Katti, joined a resource person named Ganesh to act as domain experts during the hackathon. They offered technical guidance and feedback to help teams refine their proposals.

The internal hackathon is designed to strengthen students' technical skills, teamwork, creativity, leadership and readiness for industry roles by moving them through the full cycle from problem identification to solution development.

Principal Vijay A. Athavale led the organising committee, which included dean of IRDC Rudresh Magadum, head of the Computer Science and Engineering department R.S. Patil, Institute SPOC for SIH 2026 Sharada Kori, faculty coordinator Pavan Korlahalli, and additional faculty members, mentors, volunteers and student coordinators. Athavale thanked the institute's management following the event.

Source: The Hindu