my uttarakhand news Bureau
Roorkee, 8 Dec: The Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee today inaugurated the Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2025 – Hardware Edition Grand Finale, hosted by Rethink! The Tinkering Lab, bringing together 150 students and 36 faculty mentors from across the country. As a designated Nodal Centre under the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell (MIC) and AICTE, IIT Roorkee is playing a pivotal role in nurturing India’s next generation of hardware innovators.
The event began in the presence of dignitaries, faculty coordinators, and participating teams, followed by a virtual linkage with the central inauguration of SIH 2025. The ceremony featured a welcome address by Prof Varun Sharma (SPOC, SIH 2025), along with remarks by nodal representatives from the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell.
This year’s Hardware Edition at IIT Roorkee comprises 25 selected teams working on five critical problem statements from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW). These include solutions for extreme-weather surveillance, satellite-integrated handheld radios, crop maturity prediction tools, low-cost cotton-picking mechanisms, and advanced jute retting machinery. The hardware solutions developed under SIH directly align with major national missions such as Atmanirbhar Bharat, Viksit Bharat@2047, Digital India, Make in India, and Agriculture 4.0.
At the inaugural ceremony, Prof KK Pant, Director, IIT Roorkee, said, “Smart India Hackathon exemplifies India’s commitment to technology-driven problem solving. At IIT Roorkee, we are proud to host innovators developing hardware solutions that contribute directly to national priorities in security, agriculture, and rural livelihoods. This Hackathon reflects the spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat—ideas emerging from India, for India.”
Highlighting institutional commitment to innovation, Prof Varun Sharma (SPOC, SIH 2025) and Faculty Coordinator, Tinkering Lab, IIT Roorkee, remarked, “SIH provides students with a unique ecosystem to convert real-world challenges into implementable hardware solutions. It brings together research, mentoring, prototyping, and interdisciplinary teamwork, enabling innovators to work closely with problem-solving agencies, industry stakeholders, and government partners.”
The solutions developed during the Grand Finale will contribute to India’s long-term innovation goals aligned with technology self-reliance, youth empowerment, agricultural modernisation, and next-generation hardware innovation.
About The Author
