KAVACH-2023: Centre launches national level hackathon for Indian students

Mumbai: The Centre launched a national-level ‘hackathon’ on Thursday with the aim to address cyber security challenges and cybercrimes in the country. This will be done by identifying innovative ideas and technological solutions given by the participating students and start-ups.

The participants can submit their ideas between March 1 to April 15, following which they will be evaluated till May 15.

According to officials, youngsters from educational institutions across the country and registered start-ups will participate in the “KAVACH 2023” hackathon to find robust, secure and effective technological solutions for cyber security using their technical expertise and innovative skills.

“It will advance the blockage of cyber security crimes with a robust system monitoring and safety provisions,” said Balaji Srivastava, Director General, Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D).

KAVACH 2023 is a unique national hackathon jointly conducted by the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell, AICTE, Bureau of Police Research and Development, and the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (Ministry of Home Affairs) to identify innovative ideas and technological solutions for challenges faced by law enforcement agencies and common citizens, he said.

Abhay Jere, Vice-Chairman of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), said KAVACH-2023 will be conducted in two phases.

“In the first phase, the problem statements, grouped into various buckets such as fake news, social media, dark web, women safety, phishing detection, video analytics and CCTV, obscene content detection, spam alert, malware analysis and digital forensics, shall be posed to the public.

“Willing participants are expected to develop digital solutions for the statements using robust technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, augmented reality and virtual reality, and submit their concepts on the portal of Kavach-2023,” he added.

The grand finale of the hackathon, scheduled from July 12-14, will be a 36-hour-long event during which selected youths will participate to find robust, secure and effective technological solutions.

“Total prize money worth Rs 20 lakh will be awarded to the winning teams,” said Rajesh Kumar, CEO of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). The batches of finalists will be announced between May 16 and 31, following which they will undergo a month-long training.