 Smart India Hackathon 2023 is round the corner. The problem statements have been released. Dealing with problem statements in a hackathon, particularly the one like Smart India Hackathon involves a systematic and strategic approach. In this series, we will be joined by some past winners of the Smart India Hackathon to help you guide and navigate through these problem statements effectively. Today we have with us Sayid Ibrahim, who will be sharing his thoughts and inputs on the problem statement, SIH 1384, which is developing an interactive gaming software on intellectual property awareness for school students. Welcome Sayid Ibrahim, welcome to the show. Thank you Vikas. And to begin with, please introduce us to yourself and you know, just tell us something about yourself. Yeah, so my name is Sayid Ibrahim Maaz, I am from Bangalore. I am an associate engineer working at Blackhawk Network India currently. I graduated this year and in my third year, which is the year 2022, I participated in Smart India Hackathon 2022 and won the problem statement at Nagpur Shiranthi Baba College of Engineering for the Planetarium problem statement. Okay, that's wonderful and congratulations for that, Sayid. Now, I mean, since you've been a winner of the past year's hackathon and you aist a particular problem statement, I think our viewers would be interested to know how you were able to do it. So, I mean, looking at this year's problem statements, I guess you picked up one with which, you know, you would want to, you know, share your thoughts with the aspirants this year. So what is the problem statement that you picked and just tell us something to begin with that. Yeah, so the problem statement that I picked was a problem statement 1384, which was regarding an interactive gaming software to develop or to spread intellectual property awareness for school students. So it's based on the problem statement, it was regarding a gamified software which allowed students to understand easily about intellectual property rights in India. Okay, so I think the viewers will be very interesting and interested to know if you were the person dealing with this problem statement, how do you be dealing with it? Like how do you plan it? So first of all, when you look at any problem statement, in the problem statement, there is information given by SIH itself in detail as to what they expect from the students or what they expect from the team. So it is required to go through the information or the tips which I prefer to call about how to approach the problem statement and how to solve it. And as they have mentioned already, they wanted in the general description of the problem statement, they mentioned how they want students to understand the different types of intellectual property rights like copyright, patent, etc. And based on different difficulty levels, raise their awareness about it. So there are different parts, when you submit a problem statement for the PPT, the tech stack or the technology which I would use would be preferably Unity, because Unity is a game development software and the problem statement requires us to make a gamified software which is easy for students to interact and use. And apart from that, Unity is a platform independent, so anyone can use it on their laptop or their mobile phones. And the approach which I would go with is such that I would allow the student to have a pick random objects from different parts of a scene and then make the student to build a design or a logo or some patent of some sort and make the student go through the process of different stages of how the patent is filed and the different details that are required while filing a patent and the stages and how to proceed with them at the same time. Before we go ahead with the patent part of it, let's stick to the technology part for a while. So you said your choice would be software called Unity. Unity, as I understand, is something which is not very difficult to work on. But still, I mean, would you want some kind of some basic technical know-how with your people dealing with this particular problem statement? So let's talk about the team first. Like what kind of a team would it be for, you know, this particular statement? This problem statement was similar to my problem statement because I also use Unity. So my team consisted of two coders, myself and my junior, he was a part of the team. So we were the two coders and apart from us, we even had four designers. So when you use Unity, you need to design the game objects or the different parts of the software. And you need the code people to actually run the code or the objects regarding it. So team preparation wise, I would suggest you, you need to have a balance wherein people have a generalized idea on how to use Unity, even though it is easy, comparatively compared to normal coding. Unity requires some basic knowledge like the different packages that you have to have to import beforehand, as well as you need a basic C-sharp knowledge, which will allow you to use imported packages to read it. So that would be my team. And one of the most important thing is you need to have a compatible team. So my team, we had tried and tested in various hackathons and I would suggest you to do the same, like participate in many hackathons and form an ideal team, which would support you. So great, that was about the team, which has some good coding acumen as well as I guess some designing acumen as well, because using Unity would be good if somebody was a good designer also using that particular software. So okay, team part taken care of, now the planning part. How would you go about dealing with the problem statement now, after this team, which you have at your disposal? So once you have the team, ideally split the team into like each individually, we all worked on different parts of the software or the different parts of the project. So my the designer started modeling, basically modeling is nothing but understanding and creating the design components in blender. So they started understanding blender, knowing how to import the properties, how to import projects and put it into Unity, you can go through the various YouTube tutorials. And at the same time, the coding people, we decided to work on the base of the project which required the implementation, actual implementation, once the objects are integrated, you need to make them move, you need to enable the user to select all these kick functions, etc. event handlers, we understood the documentation, which it is called documentation and syntax of various functions. We worked on that and we made a base prototype or sample program, I would say, on how to meet the app or proceed with that. Okay, great. So this is like, you know, dealing with the software and the technical part of this. And now about, you know, planning in the entire term in the sense that now the next part is of course, the IP awareness. So how does that get into it? Yeah, so research is very important, of course. So if you start taking the problem statement, first of all, you need to understand what is intellectual property rights. So I would suggest you to meet lawyers, meet patent handlers, and various government representatives or legal representatives, which have a good idea about what is actually happening. And work on understanding the different things. Obviously, you can understand things from the internet, I would suggest that. But if you approach people, apart from online, through offline interaction, it is much better because it's easier to gain the information and ask doubts face to face. So I would suggest do proper research about the various concepts and other things. So say, have you had any brush with the intellectual property rights in your, during the course, when you were like, you know, doing these hackathons or otherwise? I actually have a trademark in my name. So I applied for this trademark because I wanted to understand entrepreneurship. So one of the parts of SIH itself that held a bootcamp about entrepreneurship and how to provide with it. So when I was dealing with that, I got interested about entrepreneurship and the different stages in India, how it can be supported. So I applied for a copyright, not copyright, sorry, I applied for a trademark. And this trademark it was applied for six months ago, and it's almost in the process of getting approved. So once I have the trademark, I have rights over where I use and how I use it. So yeah, I did, it was useful for me and I applied it. Okay, great. So you told us about the technology part of it, how would you ideally be handling this? And also how would you bring in the IP awareness aspect by, you know, talking to the lawyers and doing your own bit of research? Now, how would you like to present this entire thing? So as it turns out to be a winner? So if you have any thoughts on that? What looks so first of all, so whatever software you make, it has to be easy to be understand, like it should be easy to understand at the same time, it should be UI should be very intuitive. It should look better than any, any software the student can use. Because since the students are the primary users, if the interactions as well as the UI is not good, they lose interest in our current time. It is very important to have catchy, catchy, catchy UI and graphics. So I would focus on that. So first of all, you need to have, again, designers come into picture. If you have good designers, you can make any object or any graphics that you require customized version. And apart from that, I would suggest, okay, work on building a prototype and understanding how the things will work out at the hackathon. So last minute, when you go to the hackathon, you need you should not be able to you need not do everything from the scratch. You need to have to you need to have a basic idea as to how the different stages are done, as well as, for example, I'll give when you make any game if I software, you need to have the menus, you need to have the instructions, you need to have the exit buttons, all these functionalities, you need to know the knowledge beforehand. Because at the hackathon, you're not only implementing your idea, what the judges and the other requirements that are implemented there, that also come into picture. So you need to implement the suggestions with the judges give you. So I mean, very well articulated side, I mean, I think you covered pretty strongly the entire process, what you would be going through, or how ideally you would be handling it. That's nice. So in the end, a final piece of advice to the people who would be looking to, you know, deal with this particular problem statement, or one looking forward to a solution to this particular problem statement. Any final piece of advice? The advice that I would give to the people who are approaching this problem statement, it would be, first of all, research is very important, have an understanding of the problem statement and the content as well beforehand, and do extensive research. The second advice would be, the UI should be very user friendly and easy to understand, since it's students, you don't know the age group which will be handling it. So think accordingly, and it should be used across various age groups. And third of all, third, I would suggest you work on having a basic prototype beforehand to understand the different functionalities and the different options or buttons or the documentation, so that you don't end up having any trouble on the final day of hackathon, because functionality such as having a basic menu, the exit buttons, or the movement or the triggers or the various documentations you need to be prepared. And the judges at the hackathon as well, they give you suggestions in real time, so you need to be able to adapt and include these suggestions to make to win, obviously. So if you want to win, you have to ensure that you are fast and you pick up on these changes with the real time. And the last thing I would tell is, when I was doing this, when I, when I worked on this particular problem statement, similar one, they asked me to integrate real time data, which was new. So understand and have an idea beforehand about the documentation, even though they are not told currently in the problem statement. So great, I think that was a very comprehensive input coming from you, past hackathon winner. So thank you so much for joining us today. And I'm sure people who would be, you know, willing to participate in this particular competition with this from statement would be immensely benefited from your thoughts, your inputs, or what you have to say about, you know, how to deal with this. Thank you so much for joining us, and we wish you all the best for any end of us that you be a marketer born in your life further. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Remember, effective collaboration, communication and adaptability are crucial for any hackathon. Keep a positive mindset, embrace challenges and enjoy the learning experience. Good luck with your participation in the Smart India Hackathon.