Coimbatore, 4th February 2019: ThinkaHack 2019, the world’s largest RPA hackathon, sponsored by the worldwide RPA leader- UiPath and organized by global fintech solution and service provider- KGiSL, hosted young and brilliant minds from various colleges all over India for the 36-hour RPA hackathon face-off. Winners of ThinkaHack were announced at the close of the hackathon on Feb 3, 2019.
The RPA hackathon was inaugurated on Feb 2 by Dr. Ashok Bakthavathsalam, Managing Director, KGiSL; Mr. Raghu Subramanian, CEO, India, UiPath, and Mr. Prassadh Shanmugam, Chief Executive Officer, KGiSL, in the presence of Mr. Shrinath Bolloju, Managing Director South Asia- Operations & Technology, Citibank; Mr. Arindam Banerjee, Managing Director, Wells Fargo; and Mr. Ramesh Nagesh, CEO, Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank, the Chief Guests for the event. 1417 participants, 447 teams, representing 112 colleges/ institutions participated in the ThinkaHack. The Hackathon, held at KGiSL campus at Coimbatore, was judged by 40 judges over 5 rounds.
The participants met, formed groups, brainstormed, discussed, imparted ideas and aided each other in developing innovative and smart projects based on Robotic Process Automation. The participants who registered for the Hackathon went through the UiPath certificate course which helped them familiarize with the UiPath RPA tool that was used for the Hackathon. The participants did not incur any cost for registration or for the certificate course. Registrations were done through www.ThinkaHack.com.
During the course of Hackathon, KGiSL organized all aspects of participant management such as IT infrastructure, connectivity, tech support, accommodation at the campus, meals, and value kit that included Hackathon T-shirt, ID cards, stationery as well as other necessary stuff required for the contest. The Hackathon was supported by over 40 RPA Mentors from UiPath technical staff and over 50 tech professionals from KGiSL.
The closing ceremony of ThinkaHack was on Feb 3rd and speaking on the occasion, Mr. Raghu Subramanian, CEO, UiPath India, said “We at UiPath are heralding the Automation First era wherein we envision one robot per person, based on an open and free collaboration platform in a world where robots themselves are learning new skills. We are stepping into a Gigabot economy in which RPA skills would be a big differentiator for both new career-seekers and currently employed tech professionals. UiPath has a target of producing 500,000 trained automation professionals by 2022. Hackathons such as these go a long way in expanding the RPA skill base in the country.”
“We are happy to host ThinkaHack for all the young programmers with technical acumen and give them a real-time experience of Hackathon. I hope this gives them the zest to participate in more and more such events which will help them develop their technical skills and create software in an excellent way to drive innovation. In future, we are hoping to make this an annual event” Dr. Ashok Bakthavathsalam, Managing Director, KGiSL stated. He also added that students should make it a point to participate in at least ten such Hackathons before they graduate to make themselves get specialized in the field of software development.
Addressing the gathering, Prassadh Shanmugam, Chief Executive Officer, KGiSL started his address by taking the audience onto a journey through the development of Saravanampatti as an IT park and deciphered the potential of Coimbatore to become the leading IT hub of India, he further added “RPA holds the potential to transform the current technological trends to a much innovative route. We are glad to tie up with UiPath and provide an opportunity for young talents from India to get this wonderful experience of Hackathon where smart like-minded people connected and engaged in excellent programming.” He designed his speech as an ode to the Emperor of KG Group, Dr. Ashok Bakthavathsalam in his Birthday.
The smart minds who were adorned as the first place winners of ThinkaHack are Indra Pranesh P, Jaganathan C and Ajay Krishna R from Kongu Engineering College, Erode who came up with the most innovative and groundbreaking solution caught the awe of judges and mentors alike; the proud runners up are Balraj V, Mohammed Nisar, Nagendran from KGiSL-IIM, Coimbatore gave a neck to neck competition to the first place winners with their equally constructive solution and the third place went to Yogeshwar Madhavane, Sri Krishna and Andrew Akash from Sri Manakula Vinayagar Engineering College, Puducherry.
The top teams got a total cash price of INR 4, 50,000/- and the best 120 Participants who demonstrated the most effective and talented technological innovation were given offers to join the folds of UiPath and KGiSL. The winning team got a cash prize of Rs.2, 00,000 and the Runner up got Rs.1, 00,000. The next three top teams got a cash prize of Rs.75, 000, Rs.50, 000 & Rs.25, 000 respectively.
UiPath is leading the “Automation First” era – championing one robot for every person, delivering free and open training and collaboration and enabling robots to learn new skills through AI and machine learning. Led by a commitment to bring digital era skills to more than a million people, the company’s enterprise Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform has already automated millions of repetitive, mind-numbing tasks for business and government organizations all over the world, improving productivity, customer experience and employee job satisfaction.
Recently named the 6th happiest place to work by Comparably in the US, UiPath has become one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in history. The company is backed by over $400 million in funding from Accel, CapitalG, Credo Ventures, Earlybird’s Digital East Fund, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Madrona Venture Group, Meritech Capital, Seedcamp and Sequoia.
KG Information Systems Private Limited (KGiSL) is a leading fintech solutions and services provider catering to the global capital market and insurance domains with offices in India, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and the US. With strong expertise in the BFSI technology space for two decades, KGiSL has sturdy world-class infrastructure and streamlined processes that pave the way in creating innovative solutions and services to the Insurance and Capital Markets domains. KGiSL ‘s current primary focus is towards areas like Robotic Process Automation, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Digital Services, along with other service offerings such as Testing Services, Professional Services, Information Security Services, Infrastructure Management Services and much more.