CSI SE Hackathon

“The only source of knowledge is experience”.
On the 6th and 7th of December 2020, for the first time in its event history, CSI-S.P.I.T. organised a virtual hackathon for the SEs with the above quote as their main agenda. To provide the second years with the much-needed experience of the around-the-clock hackathon the organising committee came up with a solidly structured plan.

The problem statements were formulated based on trending technologies like Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence and in-demand skills like App & Web development. The organising team released the problem statements the evening before the big day to all the participants, who had the liberty to choose their problem. In groups of 2-4 people, the Hackathon saw 27 teams with around 100+ enthusiastic and energetic SEs from all the branches with many newbies.

On Sunday morning i.e. the 6th of December 2020, the event commenced with the reading of instructions and a speaker session. After the teams moved onto their assigned tables on Airmeet, the coding began. For guidance for the teams, the committee had arranged for 2 mentoring sessions in between the Hackathon-hours. These sessions by their seniors (Shubham Shetty, Chirag Jain, Om Shah, Jiten Sidhpura, Rudresh Veerkhare, Parshwa Shah, Pravesh Ganwani, Manav Ranawat) helped the participants achieve their innovative solutions with ease. The Hackathon officially ended at midnight. Later in the morning of 7th December, a judging round for the teams was scheduled. Herein the teams were given 15 minutes each to present their solution with a short demonstration. After the round the shortlisted teams were announced which marked the completion of SE Hackathon.

“While the event was exhausting but at the same time, it was super fun! We learned a lot from this Hackathon. Also, The mentoring sessions were extremely helpful as some of our major doubts and issues with the system we were working on got resolved by them.”, said Keshav Thosar (one of the participants)

While deciding between such great teams was a difficult task for the judges (Anish Dixit, Tania Rajabally, Manas Sinkar, Shreya Oak, Arya Kothari, Sarah Gawde), at the end of the successful event the following three teams were announced as winners of the day:
Confusion
Idealists
Code Black

“Overall it was a great experience. Since it was the first time the committee was organising a Hackathon virtually, we got to learn new things and tried to overcome the shortcomings as much as possible to conduct a great event.”, said Shria Srivastav from CSI-S.P.I.T.