Smart India Hackathon

On 30th and 31st March 2018, Smart India Hackathon was organized all over the country. The team of which I was a part of, had choosen and were selected for the problem from the Ministry Of Statistics and Programme Implementation. The given problem statement was to help the government in data price collection which would be used for Consumer Price Index calculations.

Our proposed solution, was to utilize three Android Apps and an Admin portal. The first Android App is for the Admin (or supervisor). In which they could register a shop, officer, and view all the data. The Admin was provided with the ability to view all the shops on Google Maps. Upon clicking a marker, they would be given all the shop details along with a link to view the timestamps of all officers that visited the shop. All the data collected for commodities can be view with detailed graphs. For more details a link is provided where each entry is colour coded with reason of change and what probablity it is of being an error, which would require additional scruitiny. The second Android App was for the officer on the ground. In which they would be given a list of shops that are alloted to them. Upon arriving at a shop, they would scan the QR Code generated on the Shop Keeper’s mobile. Upon on succesfully scanning. The server ensures that the code is valid and the officer is within 200 meters of the shop by utilizing GPS co-ordinates. The officer is provided a list of items for which prices are to be collected. A column with the previous month’s price is also listed. Upon clicking an item, the officer is given complete details of it along with a photograph. The officer may even check that it is a seasonal item, which would mean that the price isn’t collected. Upon entering the prices, the officer is prompted for sudden price variations (if any) reasons. This is recorded for the supervisor to view and evaluate. The third Android App was for the ShopKeeper. This is a very simple app. It would display the Digital India Logo if the QR Code has been scanned in the past 20 days (to ensure officers come at the stipulated time). Otherwise it would display a QR code which is cryptographically generated and sent. To ensure real time collection, the QR code is regenerated every 6 seconds, making the previous one invalid.

After 3 rounds of mentoring and 3 rounds of judging, we were told that we were in the top 10. As such, we had another round of judging known as ‘Power Judging’. In the last round we were alloted 4 minutes in which, a presentation and all questions from the judges were to be answered. We had split up our work, I presented about 50% and answered all the follow up questions from the judges.

After this judging session was the announcement. We were declared the First Place Winners and awarded with a sum of ₹1,00,000.