36 Hours to Innovation: An Epic “Netathon” for 2023 — And the Ages

What do you get when you super-size a hackathon? You get a Netathon, a 36-hour solution fest full of innovative uses of leading-edge tech, including generative AI, Augmented Reality (AR), low code/no code, cybersecurity, cloud data dashboarding, and serverless architecture.

“We wanted to kick off a series of tech-centric events for our community to encourage novel solutions for common problems in various industries, from retail to healthcare and other social and community-based arenas,” said Sameer Jain, Net Solutions CEO. “There are so many incredible open-source options available not just to professionals but also students, so we launched Netathon to bring the brightest minds in the Chandigarh Tricity together to think about improving our world using technology.”

Netathon in a Nutshell

Netathon 2023 provided participants unique opportunities to conceptualize their cutting-edge solutions, win a cash prize (INR 1,00,000 for the first-place team), and network with others equally invested in technology-driven progress.

This special hackathon was opened to programmers, business analysts, product designers, and other creatives from the Chandigarh Tricity area. The participating teams were given real-world scenarios and challenged to develop innovative solutions in 36 hours. Options for use cases and associated technologies included:

• Serverless architecture (i.e., eCommerce application, online blood donor system, directory of eCommerce websites)
• Low code/no code (i.e., location-based social network app, emergency response center application, a community building app)
• Cloud data dashboard (i.e., stock market daily data visualization)
• Augmented Reality (i.e., virtual fashion app).

Beyond the specific applications and technologies, the driving force of Netathon 2023 was to demonstrate the power of human ingenuity when unleashed in a free and open environment. That’s why we encouraged Netathon participants not to shy away from using existing tech, like libraries, frameworks, or open-source code, as the spark for their creative flames.

“It’s a core belief of our company that new ideas can come from anyone, anywhere, and anytime,” said Jain. “We saw that in the Netathon, where passion, excitement, and imagination fueled inventive software applications.”

In that way, all the 15 teams in the Netathon were winners. We honored the top three teams.

Announcing the Netathon 2023 Winners

Two industry experts judged Netathon 2023: Net Solutions’ Chief Technology (CTO), Joseph “JJ” Jude, who has more than 25 years of experience in the tech world, and Modulor Capital’s Bhavish Sood, a deep technology venture capital fund veteran, dedicated IT company advisor, and former Gartner consultant. The jury evaluated the participating teams, and the winners were chosen based on the project's relevance per the theme, innovativeness, design, execution, and presentation.

The first prize of INR 1,00,000 was won by a team of Raman Saini, Vipan Sharma, and Shekhar Ken - from Tech Hindustan. Their confidence, depth of knowledge, innovative work, comprehensive perspective, and speed of execution of solutions won them through the competition.

Shruti Sharma, Anil Sharma, Ashok Singh, Babit Kumar, Rajat Kumar, and Rudrakshi Arora from team ‘The Byte Crunchers’, Net Solutions won the second prize of INR 50,000. With their creative problem-solving approach, they have won awards for being the best coding team in other tech conferences. During the Netathon, their creativity, dynamic course to their area of choice (cloud), and commitment impressed the jury.

Ashwini, Manish, Rohan, Vikram, and Vipin of the team ‘Bro Coders’ won the second runners-up prize of INR 25,000. They pride themselves on their constant drive for excellence and their expertise in code writing. They worked on a relatively new service area - low code, no code development.

A special jury award for INR 25,000 was awarded to Harshit, Deepak, Devashish, Tarun, Manraj, and Uday, Team Champions, an enthusiastic group of students from the Chandigarh College of Engineering, who decided to foray into low code no code development, even though it was a new area of work for them. Their spirit was commendable, and they worked around creating user-friendly solutions. The talent, creativity, and zeal to win won them this special mention and award.