Coimbatore, Dec. 9
As a first of its kind in Tamil Nadu, Forge Accelerator in association with Entrepreneurship and Innovation Development Institute (EIDI), a society established by the government of Tamil Nadu has kick started a three-day non-stop hardware Hackathon event TIGC 2017 at KCT TECH Park in the city on Friday.
Speaking about the TNIGC 2017, Dr. Meera, Programme Director said that it was an event aimed at boosting creativity in working professionals to come out with ideas to solve pressing problems being faced by consumers, citizens, government, industry and our blue planet called Earth.
"There is a conducive atmosphere in cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad for start -ups in the domain of Information and Technology (IT) to bloom and grow and Hackathon contests are a regular phenomenon in those cities to encourage both software and hardware developers. But two tier cities like Coimbatore with enormous growth potential are short of an enabling start-up eco system and thus needs events like Hardware Hackathon to tap in to the existing talents and encourage budding entrepreneurs", said Dr. Meera.
While Coimbatore can take pride for hosting a Hardware Hackathon event for the first time in Tamil Nadu, only four teams from the city have made it to the event. This was not because the city was bereft of talents but the reluctance to participate in an event like this which demanded them to be confined to the event space for 58 hours, she reasoned.
Explaining the selection process for the participants in TIGC (2017), she said, 165 applications were received but only 22 teams were selected based on certain criteria.
When asked about why the event was confined to working professionals, Dr. Meera said in the future it would be opened to students as many among them with innovative ideas and spirit of entrepreneurship needed active support and encouragement from organisations like theirs.
Sharing his experience, a Coimbatore based young entrepreneur, Mr. Sudharsan Rajendran said, an event like this offers a great platform for people with creative instincts to share and learn from one another, besides teaching them how to translate their innovative ideas into viable business propositions.
State-of-art facilities at six labs in the domains of Electronics, Computing, 3D Printing, Fabrication, Drones and Robotics set up at a cost of Rs. 3.5 crores would help the participants in the Hardware Hackathon to explore and experiment with ideas.
With 30 plus mentors from different firms such as BOSCH , Cognisant Technology Solutions and Intel turning up for the event, it would provide immense learning experience for budding entrepreneurs besides enabling them to arrive at Minimum Viable Prototype, which is one of the major objective behind TNIGC 2017, she added.
The three-day Hardware Hackathon will culminate on 10th December in the evening.