Mahatma Gandhi University hosted an interdisciplinary hackathon on September 9 and 10 as part of Smart India Hackathon 2026. The first such hackathon at the University, it was jointly organised by the Business Innovation and Incubation Centre, School of Computer Sciences, School of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, and School of Data Analytics.
Vice-Chancellor Prof. (Dr.) D. Mavoothu inaugurated the programme. Syndicate members Dr. Gireesh Kumar G.S., Dr. Rajesh Komath and Dr. Athira Prakash, Head of the departments Prof. (Dr.) Bindu V.R., Prof. (Dr.) Jyothisha, Incubation Centre Director Prof. (Dr.) Radhakrishnan E.K. and TBI Manager Nidheesh M. spoke on the occasion.
Twenty six interdisciplinary teams participated in the hackathon. Each team consisted of six students and a faculty mentor. Students from undergraduate, postgraduate and integrated programmes across disciplines such as Social Work, Biosciences, Counselling, Food Science, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Data Analytics, Plant Science, Management, Social Sciences, Data Science, Economics, Physics and Material Science took part in the event.
The hackathon began with problem identification and team formation, followed by ideation, solution development and presentation. Bringing students from different academic backgrounds together helped the teams understand real life problems from different perspectives and work towards possible solutions.
The initiative ultimately aims to encourage students to turn their ideas into practical solutions. Faculty members and experts supported the teams throughout the programme. The University plans to further develop promising ideas from the hackathon through mentoring, prototype development, validation, intellectual property support, incubation and funding.
