Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Sanitation Hackathon, 2012 at Pune



Recently, Infosys, along with the World Bank and Indian Institute for Human Settlements organized a two day international contest — Sanitation Hackathon, 2012. My friend and colleague Aditya Gosavi and his team won the second prize in it. The challenge was for programmers to develop innovative software solutions that address real-world problems in sanitation. Their team devised an Android application called ‘Raildoot’ for the Railways, where passengers can register complaints against dirty conditions in any boggy of a train and it will be taken care of at the next station. It will be actually implemented.

Note that 4 out of the 6 winners awarded in the event are Infosys teams! Pune was one of the 14 cities worldwide that hosted this event. All the best to the winners and hope to more of such social initiatives!


When we got an email about it and sent him congratulations, he mentioned below, which I found inspiring for all (and hence sharing it):

"This contest was a perfect for me! Where I could get satisfaction of working for betterment of society and where I could use my engineering knowledge!
Leave the Contest and all …. Good thing is that, our solution is actually going to get implemented! We are going to get help from incubators who will hatch our idea, tell about it to investors, generate funding and all :)
I am very eager to see what happens next…

Oh! And did I tell you, we get to meet the World Bank Chief at New Delhi!!!!!"

- Rahul Tiwary


Note: Views are personal and do not represent views of any organization associated with the author. [Detailed disclaimer]

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