Uyir Road Safety Hackathon, a national level hackathon to generate innovative solutions to make Coimbatore's road a lot safer was launched on Wednesday by Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister V.Senthil Balaji, here in the city.

Organized by Coimbatore District Administration, City Police and UYIR - an NGO working in the field of Road safety, this hackathon will feature a range of problem statements from the Transport, Police and Highways Departments. These problem statements will be based on the factors affecting road safety in Coimbatore. The event is open for Students and Professionals.

Dr.S.Rajasekaran, Managing Trustee and S.Malarvizhi, Trustee and Hackathon Project In-charge, UYIR joined the minister to launch the UYIR Road Safety Hackathon along with the Guests of Honor Kranthi Kumar, Coimbatore District Collector; Senthil Kumar, IG of Police - West Zone and V.Balakrishnan, Commissioner, Coimbatore City Police.

Sivaguru Prabhakaran, Commissioner, Coimbatore City Corporation; Saravana Sundar, Deputy IG of Police- Coimbatore Range; Azhagarasu, Joint Transport Commissioner-Coimbatore Zone; Karthikeyan, Superintendent of Police, Coimbatore District also joined the launch event. 

"Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology, Coimbatore which has expertise in conducting hackathons will be the organizing partner of this UYIR Road Safety Hackathon, and they will conduct the hackathon in a very sophisticated way, end to end," Dr.Rajasekaran said. 

S.Malarvizhi, Chairperson and Managing Trustee of Sri Krishna Institutions, and a Trustee of UYIR mentioned at the launch event that the abstract for the problem statement should be submitted before 29th December 2024. An online presentation event will be held separately for Students and Professionals - 18th January for Professionals and 20th January for Students 

The final shortlist will be announced on 22nd January and the grand finale will be held on 8th February 2025 for the Students and 9th February for Professionals at Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology. She shared that the total prize money for this event will be Rs.6.5 lakh.

Sivaguru Prabhakaran, Coimbatore City Corporation Commissioner who is also the Chairperson of the Technical Committee of this hackathon said that they expect atleast 1000 solutions specific to Coimbatore city's road safety issues will be generated through this hackathon. He expressed that the corporation, city police, district administration, highways and transport departments are ready to implement the best solutions to make Coimbatore roads safer.

Denoting the virtual launch of the ‘UYIR Kutty Cops’ program by Chief Minister Stalin in 2022, Minister Senthil Balaji said that the journey to make Coimbatore roads accident-free can become a success when public join hands with Tamilnadu government and UYIR. He assured that all support will be provided by the government to UYIR in this regard.