IIT Kharagpur will be hosting the grand finale of the 'Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2019', on March 2-3 that would test the students' abilities to solve daily life problems. This year, 186 students from various colleges including six from IIT Kharagpur, will be participating in the event, an IIT KGP statement said Wednesday.

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The event is an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resources Development. Over 1,300 teams, each having eight participants, will be competing non-stop for 36 hours across 48 different nodal centres of the country, in the grand finale on March 2-3.

IIT KGP is one of these 48 centres. Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar will announce the start of the Smart India Hackathon 2019 on March 2. A live interaction session with Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been scheduled later on that date.

The event aims to provide students with a platform to solve some of pressing problems we face in our daily lives, and inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mindset of thinking outside the box and problem-solving.

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The last edition of the hackathon saw over 5 million students from various engineering colleges compete for the top prize across 35 locations. "Smart India Hackathon with its massive scale, reach, mentorship and follow up is aimed at building a new culture of innovation in our higher education system which will have far-reaching effects on the future generations," Director IIT KGP and Chairman of the event Prof P P Chakrabarti said.