Hack 4 change, 24-hr hackathon supported by Google and T-hub at The/Nudge Institute’s charcha’23 for improving lives of small-holder farmers

Hyderabad, August 25, 2023: The/Nudge Institute’s flagship tech-enabled livelihoods summit, charcha’23, supported by Google in collaboration with T-hub brought together tech students and professionals to compete in Hack 4 Change,  a, 24-hour hackathon, to develop an android application that addresses the issues faced by the small and marginal farmers across India.
 

Over 270+ applicants across the country applied to participate in this INR 5 lakhs winning challenge. The T-hub and Google teams selected 40 teams that would travel to participate in the hackathon at the ISB, Hyderabad campus. This hackathon was one of the largest hackathons held in Hyderabad.

 
Team Agriheroes from Hyderabad was selected as the winning team for their android application of actively bridging the gap between agritech and academia through employing deep – tech to suggest evidence and research backed strategies to support smallholder farmers. Their example on checking the health status of cattle won them the first place.
 

The team was selected by a jury consisting of Samuel Praveen Kumar, [Joint Secretary (Extension, AIF, Investments & Price Support), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare,  Govt. Of India], Guru Bhat, (Sr. Director, Engineering, Google), Arun Prasath Arunachalam (Principal Engineer, Google), Wing Commander Anthony Anish (COO, T-Hub), and Ravi Trivedi (Head, Transforming Agriculture for Small Farmers, The/Nudge Institute).

 
“It is very encouraging to see youth and early startup professions emerge with solutions for problems that are not considered to be lucrative enough,” Ravi Trivedi shared. “The/Nudge is extremely thankful to Google and THub for joining hands to attract the youth’s attention towards India’s agricultural, social, and developmental challenges and enable technology to push for change.”

 
Team Infernos from Ghaziabad won INR 2.5 lakhs for their idea on solar powering the agriculture revolution by employing the use of Alternate Reality while Team Lightheads from Hyderabad won INR 1 lakh for their idea of utilizing satellite imaging to help small holder farmers to increase crop productivity and bring about yield optimization.