The Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Grand Finale of the Smart India Hackathon via video conferencing.
In his address, the Prime Minister underlined the importance of Participative Governance to the participants of the Smart India Hackathon-2018.
He expressed his utmost hope in youngsters and urged then to contribute towards achieving the vision of New India. “I never miss any opportunity to interact with Young Professionals, Young CEO’s, Young Scientists and Young Bureaucrats”, he said. “I am happy to see young minds thinking about ways to take our nation forward. It is a delight to be among smart innovators of smart India,” he added.
The Prime Minister said that the biggest assets of any nation are Shram Shakti and Iccha Shakti. “Once the people decide to bring about change, everything is possible. But the biggest mistake governments make is to think that they alone can bring about change”.
The Prime Minister expressed his happiness over the increase in the number of participants in the hackathon as compared to the hackathon last year. “I am told that most of the projects undertaking during the previous hackathon have been completed”, he added.
The Prime Minster laid emphasis on innovation and gave the mantra of IPPP i.e. Innovate, Patent, Produce and Prosper. “These four steps will lead our country towards faster development, for that we will have to innovate and turn our innovations in patents, making our production smoother and taking products speedily to the people will make them prosper ”, he said.
“Innovation has the power to overcome the challenges our world faces, we should think about how our innovation can transform the lives of our fellow citizens”, he added.
The Prime Minister highlighted various decisions by the Government to facilitate research and innovations which include-
· Introducing Modern Techniques based on Educational and Learning concepts in Atal Tinkering Labs.Students of class 6th to 12th will be benefitted from this.
· Prime Minister Research Fellowship to around 1000 best students of BTech, MTech and MSc courses in institutes like IITs, IISc and NIT every year. These students will be given financial assistance of about 70-80 thousand rupees per month over a period of five years.
· Focus on providing greater autonomy to Higher Educational Institutions.
· Setting up of 20 world class Institute of Excellence.
During his address, the Prime Minister cited an example to highlight how Make in India has become a brand and is now becoming popular across the world. He told that four years ago there were only two manufacturing units of mobile phones in India whereas today around 120 factories are operating in the country. He also informed the gathering that there has been about threefold increase in Patent registrations as well as Trademarks registrations in comparison of the registration figures in 2013-14.
The Prime Minister urged the participants to explore the possibility of Multiple Sector Hackathons like Health-Hackathon, Law-Hackathon, Architecture-Hackathon, Agriculture-Hackathon and Rural Hackathon. “We need innovative agriculturists, engineers, architects, doctors, lawyers, managers for these Hackathon. Such Hackathons will provide a platform to budding talents”, he emphasised. He also shared his experience of real time monitoring of development projects through PRAGATI meetings, with the audience.
During the Grand Finale program, the Prime Minister also interacted with the participants of Smart India Hackathon across various centres.