World India Food Hackathon Unlocks the Opportunities for Budding Entrepreneurs

MINISTRY OF Food Processing Industries culminated a Hackathon, part of World Food India 2017 where The Confederation of Indian Industry is the National Event Partner. 156 teams from across the country registered for the Hackathon, of which 67 teams were invited to present their solutions.

 A two-day long Hackathon with a focus on “Developing innovative technology enabled solutions for challenges faced by Food Processing Sector” was organised wherein Students, Entrepreneurs, Start-ups & technology enthusiasts across the country presented their solutions to address some key issues such as food wastage, carbon footprint, maintaining freshness of fruits and vegetables, backward and forward linkages for farmers, amongst others.

The event was organised with a vision to encourage and strengthen the opportunities that young India can contribute towards the high potential food industry which is set to receive 10-billion-dollar investment in the next two years. More than one million jobs are expected to be created in the food processing industry in the next three years. An expert panel of mentors drawn from academia and practitioners helped the participating teams in developing effective and robust solutions which were presented to an eminent jury, which scored the shortlisted solutions on implementation feasibility, novelty of the idea & technical robustness.

Speaking about the event,  Jagdish Prasad Meena, Secretory MOFPI said “World Food India is a platform to showcase the potential of our food processing sector to the world and eliminate inefficiencies in the system. As a part of this larger initiative, we intend to harness young talent of the country to and it is heartening to see such an overwhelming response for the Hackathon. We are confident that the next 3 years are going to be extraordinary in bringing out the best, with such young minds at work. We look forward to seeing more talent coming into the industry and the Government will extend full support to facilitate taking some of these ideas to reality”.

The panel of jury members for the event included Dr Chindi Vasudevappa, Vice Chancellor, National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, Dr Bijaya Kumar Behera, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India, Dr Rahul Mirchandani, Chairperson and Managing Director, Aries Agro Limited,  Tarun Gupta - Chief Technology Officer (Retail), Cognizant Technology Solutions India Private Limited,  L Shiva Kumar, Senior Vice President & Head - Food Business, Walmart India Private Limited, Ms Rama Vedashree, Chief Executive Officer, Data Security Council of India,  Arbind Das, Whole Time Director & Chief Operating Officer, Godrej Tyson Foods Ltd, Mayank Jalan, Chairman and Managing Director, Keventer Agro Limited and Shrikant Sinha, Chief Executive Officer, NASSCOM Foundation.

World Food India is supported by Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Development of North East Region, Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Civil Aviation.