Winners of Tamil Nadu’s first Road Safety Design Hackathon held in Online Mode on Tamil were felicitated on Tuesday (23.1.2024) at an award ceremony held at DJ Academy of Design.

This state-level Hackathon for School and College students was jointly organized by DJ Academy of Design (DJAD), Coimbatore, UYIR, a Coimbatore-based NGO working in the field of Road Safety and Bengaluru-based institution DQ Labs, with the objective to make the participants come out with solutions to various road-safety issues they find around them, using Design Thinking, Empathy & Chat GPT, and present them as 1-minute videos.

Coimbatore City Police Commissioner V.Balakrishnan IPS., gave away the certificates and cash rewards to the winners in the presence of Lalitha Devi Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu, Managing Trustee GKD Charity Trust, M.Rajarajan, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Traffic, Coimbatore City, Dion, Director, DQ Labs, Bengaluru and M.Rasappan, ED, Lakshmi Corporate Services. 

The Hackathon was officially launched on November 8th by District Collector Kranthi Kumar Pati IAS., Coimbatore Commissioner of Police Balakrishnan IPS., SP Badrinarayanan IPS.,  along with Dr.S Rajasekaran, Managing Trustee, UYIR.

750 students – 170+ teams registered to participate in the hackathon. The participants were from Std.8th to 12th and UG/PG belonging to various educational institutions in Tamil Nadu.

A special session was held where the participants were introduced to the concept of Design-Thinking and the importance of Empathy when coming out with solutions.  In order to assist the students to come out with multiple solutions to the road-safety issue they wish to take as problem-statement, the organizers introduced them to Chat GPT during the boot camp.

The hackathon was held on November 18th and 19th last year in online mode. The participants were sorted into 3 groups – Std.8th to 10th, Std.11th -12th and UG/PG. 42 teams were shortlisted, and the winners were chosen out of them.

The students made tremendous observations for their project. The students found that road-accidents on the one hand are caused more by people who have valid driving license who chose to drive recklessly, and on the other hand, the issues like pot-holes, some as large as a sink create unfortunate incidents on road.

They also took note of riders who jeopardize their safety on road by failing to wear proper safety-gear including helmet and jackets, and highlighted through their concepts that if certain safety measures are taken by people and government, the roads of the city can become much safer that what it is today.

Congratulating DJ Academy of Design and UYIR  for organizing this hackathon, City Police Commissioner V.Balakrishnan said that DJAD and UYIR has been instrumental in helping these young minds come out with innovative solutions to various road-safety issues.

“Thanks to the various efforts by the traffic police and organizations like UYIR, we have been able to bring down accidents to some extent; last year, the accidents (including fatal accidents) in Coimbatore City was reduced by 10% compared to the previous year(2022),” he said.

Congratulating the participants, the commissioner said, “Any initiative that can prevent accidents, provide convenience and a pleasant ‘on-road’ experience for road users is commendable, and it can contribute immensely to the welfare of the society. I look at your initiative from that angle,”.

He thanked the participants for their valuable ideas, and added that the city police will consider experimenting on a few innovative road-safety concepts that were showcased, and also test their viability on the road to see that it can be implemented.

Winners of the hackathon:

In Category 1 – Std. 8th to 10th, students from VAV International School, Udumalpet won the first prize, students from Kikani Vidhya Mandir, Coimbatore won the second, and students from VAV International School, Udumalpet and the team from Sri Chaitanya Techno School Coimbatore shared the third prize. 

In Category 2 – Std.11th to 12th, the team from Nachimuthu Polytechnic College , Pollachi won the first prize, the team from Chandrakanthi Public School, Coimbatore won the second and the team from Thamarai International School, Thanjavur won the third prize. 

In Category 3 – the students from PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore won the first prize while the team from Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College, Coimbatore the second prize.

The total cash reward for this hackathon is Rs.45,000. Winners in each category who won the first prize received Rs.7,500/-, those who won second prize took home Rs.5000/- and those who won third prize received Rs.2,500/-. 

The prize money was sponsored by DJ Academy of Design, Coimbatore.