 Hackathons are gaining popularity amongst innovators and industry leaders. These hackathons not only allow knowledge sharing but also provide solutions to real life issues. But managing a hackathon efficiently is no mean task. Need of the R is an efficient platform that can manage it with ease. This is where Hack2Skill comes in the picture. Hack2Skill is the largest and fastest growing community of technology innovators including startups, working professionals, freelancers and student innovators. This hackathon platform has till date catered to the requirements of hundreds of hackathon organisers. The most noticeable being ELECTHON23 and one of its kind international cricket councils and NIUM's global cricket hackathon to enhance the digital cricket fan experience and revolutionize the sports industry. Kaushik Roy first entered the spotlight as a contestant in smart eddy hackathon captivating evaluators and judges with his exceptional skills, passion and innovative mindset. The transition from contender to guide is a testament to his commitment to fostering talent and contributing to the growth of innovators community. Let's get to know more about Kaushik and his work. Welcome Kaushik. Thank you. So tell us something about yourself to begin with. Yeah, so I've been I'd say starting from a pretty humble background in terms of I did my college from a 30 year college in Jaipur started over there looking for opportunities like every other guy who comes from a small town in India I'd say to make something big and then came across this thing which was hackathon which was pretty new to me itself and I looked into it found it interesting because I used to do a few of the freelance project during my colleges and that is where the journey started that is why where I'd say got hooked to hackathons and here I'd say like continuing to be a part of hackathons in some way or the other today. Okay like you know sticking to that part first I mean how was the experience I mean being a first-timer new to the entire you know that system of hackathons so what kind of experience did you have when you you know touched upon it for the first time? So it was something cool as a beginner I'd say as a developer it's pretty exciting to see like okay the developers are being rewarded in terms of lakhs of rupees that is something which obviously comes up and then the opportunity which is very huge in terms of interacting with the who's who that you see in television or on the internet who are leading the tech industry you get to interact with them over there directly without any foundation is something which actually attracted me the most and then again I'd say the best part of hackathons would be like forming a team and coordinating with the team that actually showcases that how well bounded because ultimately I do feel a team which is well bounded is the one which makes a difference. Okay so from being a participant and a winner of a hackathon from that point coming to a point where you know you start to develop the platform for smart India hackathon itself so how did this journey take place what all was there in this journey of yours? Yeah so I'd once again be grateful to SIH and AICTE for like basically believing in what we can do and so we have been when we talk about we it's basically the organization and and me myself we have been working throughout in the hackathons and then in my college days I felt like okay there's something which we can build around automating or a tool which can help ease the entire process of hackathon so that is where the journey of developing a product around it started and then we slowly and started developing it we had some hackathons that we did over the period and right now currently as you mentioned we are working with smart India hackathon in terms of the platform that we are providing them for the junior and the senior decision as well. Okay so how has this experience been you know developing a platform for that hackathon and the kind of challenges you might be coming across kind of you know road blogs or you know kind of issues that you might be you know facing so how are you dealing with all those things because it's a mega event and a mega platform that you're dealing with right now. Yeah so I'd say right now as the stature itself is so huge it's the world's largest innovation model out there and catering to each and every person's individual queries and then building a platform around it which almost covers almost 80 percent of the problems that people face is something which is like the need of the R and the most amount of time that we spend is on how the user experience of the end user be it the hacker or a basically a developer who is participating or a organizing team member how they see how they visualize and how their operations are met with ease is something which our priority is right now. Great so you've also developed a platform hack to skill yeah so we'd like to know something about that and how it plays a role in you know development of the this innovation ecosystem. Yeah so hack to skill is basically a innovation led startup what we are doing over there is basically bridging the gap between the innovators that is the developers out there and startups or organizations which are looking forward to certain innovation in terms of their own organization or trying to solve certain problems which need to be addressed by the globe right now so be it MNCs or be it like government institutes we come forward with solutions crowdsourced basically so we cater it through crowdsourcing the innovation and obviously hand holding the teams in the process so that is what we do overall and in the process like I'd say we have done more than a thousand plus hackathons in our journey. Great so your platform you know basically connects innovators and industry leaders and industry itself so how does how does it happen that they are able to leverage various points for each other and to each other and how does it help them both. Yeah so for a organizer or for a problem statement provider and at the end for a end user or a developer who is trying to solve that problem the concept of collaboration is very important so be it through cannabis boards be it through project management and how the teams are working coordinating with themselves is something which is very essential in this entire journey and that is what fuels our platform in terms of how we are providing that and how we are helping the teams collaborate connect with the mentors which are out there helping them in the entire process and then ultimately reaching out to the organizer who wants the problem to be solved for them. And what about crowdsourcing part of it how does that take place. So crowdsourcing for us like over the periods we have built a huge community so right now we have active developer community of 3 million developers so which work behind us round the clock and we just reach out to them those are our people who are basically fueling this entire innovation I'd say innovation era that is coming up in terms of the technologies that we are catering to. So how does this connect the right developers with the you know entire ecosystem. Yeah so basically there's an entire developer advocacy team that works behind and I myself look at into it at times. So the objective is that we find the correct set of audience or the developers who are skilled in certain kind of technology which would be utilized for a problem statement provider and then we reach out to them we help them through numerous boot camps works of sessions are in house team which themselves first try to solve the problem in different ways and see what are the challenges that a developer might face in their journey. We cater all those resources and it's an entire process that goes into so usually it lasts somewhere between 3 to 4 months of the 10 year in which we come up with this entire solution at the end of the day. Okay so it seems that there's quite a bit that you actually offer and you actually help you know developers and innovators help with. So why don't we just list out the specific services that Hack2Skill platform has to offer. What exactly does you know it do and what all does it offer in terms of you know services as well as you know your output. Yeah so as you mentioned at the end of the day it's been powered by a product but we do provide services to the partners or the organizers that we are looking forward to certain kind of innovation. Once a partner reaches out to us we understand their problem statements we help them curate those problem statements which a developer might understand because at times it's pretty rigorous at the end to understand what a developer might need then the entire team works on those gathering of resources how we curate those resources create certain sample solutions which might come up of the hackathon work along with the team derive the entire timeline because timeline again for us is not something which is generic to each hackathon. Each of the hackathon that we do has a different set of timeline at its core and in terms of services we provide it's all clubbed within a hackathon itself but again this mentor sessions there's workshop boot camp related to those problem statement evaluation and obviously the finale hackathon which is an entire operational part. So these are the services anything that needs a developer's role to be inculcated and if an organization is looking forward to certain innovation or productive angelism I'd say we cater to those. So have you made an assessment that how these services are helping in terms of you know affecting the innovation ecosystem or you know the larger part the industry part? Yeah so recently we have done one case study amongst ourselves with all the previous hackathons that we did in 2022 and 2021 and we came up with the fact that it reduces the research and development part that an organization would have done by close to somewhere 50 percent that's the time that we reduce by crowdsourcing the innovation. So tell us something about the EI enabled services that hackathon offers? Yeah so for us again it's a very big competition that we face with ourselves because the end user is a developer who themselves are driving the innovation and if our platform is not that innovative or not up to the mark they would obviously feel left out like the ones who are trying to drive innovation are not themselves driven by the innovation. So for us it's very important and that we keep in mind and as per the trends we have different technologies that cater us. So for certificate generation we use Web 3M blockchain technology which helps us identify and keep a separate log of each of the certificates. So all the certificates that we issue are blockchain enable. Similarly for when we talk about the evaluation part, the screening part of the solutions it's fully capable and enabled by our AI driven technology we have got a huge set. So over the years we have developed a huge data pool of categories of the solutions that participants have provided, what exact problem solutions idea presentation should look like and it runs on that model and we come up with the best of solutions screened through our AI model website. So using AI model to conduct hackathons and handle various components of it. Yeah I'm sure must have helped us a lot. So what is the quantum of the improvement that you would like to put across in terms of. So I'd say like for us at the back end it has helped a lot because the entire operational part I'd say or execution of the hackathon or the flow of hackathon wherein you screen certain ideas you go through each idea that is to be done manually you need an human eye to look into it but now it has significantly reduced just by the fact that there's a machine which has been trained over a period and it looks into the ideas and then obviously we do a cross check but a major part of the time has been reduced. So in terms of improving the efficiency in hackathon events so you think this is really helping you out right. Yeah that is something which obviously would help us scale the next right now. So I would like to ask you how well is it being received in the market the solutions that you're offering the kind of products that you're offering how has it been welcomed by the industry. So right now I'd say most of the organizations that we work with are repeat and they do a lot of recurring hackathons with us that I'd say is one of the ways which proves that it is helping the way the services that we are providing or the product that we are providing is helping them both in terms of internal and external hackathons. There are multiple companies which utilize the platform be it like the likes of Google, Microsoft, Snapchat, Facebook then this, Samsung all of these utilizes and then again there are set of we are closely associated with government of India as well in terms of elixin commission of India then various state police we have done hackathons for Karnataka state police and other state departments as well. So that is how we are looking forward to it and also one of the biggest sector that we are driving innovation is fintech I'd say we have done fintech hackathons with RBI SEBI and others as well. Okay now coming back to smart India hackathon from where it all started and now you're playing a major role you know in conducting those hackathons. So this year's hackathon is going to be the biggest ever 2023. So tell us what to expect in terms of not only okay we know the numbers they are like much improved from the last year much bigger than the last year now in terms of organizing it in terms of handling the various components and elements so how well are you prepared what are we expecting this time around from you. So this time as I mentioned since we got an opportunity to work along with AICT and for that we are coming up there's already a platform out there which is helping the SI junior edition and for the senior edition as well for the finale and the grand finale there is an entire platform that has been laid out for smoothening the entire process for the teams and the finale teams as well as the organizing nodal centers which are out there. So this time the entire process since smart India hackathon in itself has created a name globally and that is something which would be a testament to it. And if I may ask you a very simple question because the answer won't be very difficult if you have to compare smart India hackathon with any other hackathon across the world pick the biggest ones around so how does that comparison go. So I'd say in terms of comparison if you it would be pretty unfair to compare smart India hackathon with any other hackathon the enormous scale that it comes up with we since we do a lot of international hackathons as well people around there talk about smart India hackathons participation being higher than the population of countries I'd say so last this last month itself we were in Mongolia and their population is 3 million and that is comparable to what is the participation of like I'd say the way in which smart India hackathon has evolved everyone across the globe knows the model which is out there. Okay Kaushik that was wonderful to hear now if I have to wrap it up but before doing that I'd like to ask you once again another basic question where do you see this entire innovation ecosystem going in terms of you know scale and efficacy of I mean we have come from point A to point B so what has been this graph like and what do you see the future for this. So I'd say this much more to be explored right now we are just at the tip of the innovation that could be driven through crowdsourcing I'd say because at the end hackathons are crowdsourcing innovation and right now we are saying just evolving not only was as an organization but this entire hackathon I'd say as a community because people are seeing the importance earlier it was limited to you know students or innovators who are at the early stage of development but right now we see serious developers who have been into business from 10 years 15 odd years actively participating and seeing this contribution because they do have realized that their solution would be heard and would be implemented at the largest of scales so like we at election commission of India be it smart India hackathon like tens and hundreds of ministries and organizations come together and provide their solution and are utilizing each day with the solution that is coming out so that itself is giving a testament of how hackathons are going to grow. That's wonderful to hear Kaushik and I'm sure people like you would keep contributing you know and adding to this wonderful realm of innovation ecosystem that India has developed and we can be so proud of not only this ecosystem but youngsters like you who are actually making a difference so thank you for all your efforts and we wish you all the best for all that you're doing to you know help the innovation infrastructure in the country and thank you for sparing your time and talking to us today. Thank you, thanks a lot it was pleasure talking to you. In Kaushik Roy we witnessed the beautiful evolution from contender to creator a journey marked by triumphs and an unwavering passion for innovation so we'll meet some more innovators on this journey of change makers keep watching.