Flipkart today announced that it has entered the final phase of its Gridlock Hackathon, a one-of-a-kind initiative to crowdsource innovative, implementable solutions from the tech community and concerned citizens, that could help ease Bengaluru’s perennial traffic problem. The initiative was announced as part of the ‘Month of Innovation’ at Flipkart, a part of its 10 year anniversary celebrations.
Gridlock Hackathon was announced on 7 June and concluded the online submissions on 2 July. The contest witnessed close to 3000 registrations including over 1000 teams. The top 10 entries will be shortlisted and invited to present their solutions on 8 July to the panel of esteemed jury comprising Binny Bansal, Group CEO, Flipkart, Sridhar Pabbisetty, CEO, Namma Bengaluru Foundation and Abhishek Goyal, DCP, Traffic East Division, Bengaluru City. The jury will pick the best 3 ideas judged on parameters like impact, feasibility, scalability, sustainability, and completeness.
Techies from all across the world have come together to share their solutions to solve for the biggest problem of a city we all love. Participants represent over 400 companies ranging from startups to established tech companies. They include Accenture, Sapient, E&Y, GE, VMware, McKinsey & Company, Amazon, Amazon Web Services, SAP, Samsung Research and Development, ISRO, Ola Cabs, Mercedes Benz R&D, Microsoft, Uber, Cube26, Cleartax, Goibibo, Infosys, Wipro, Capgemeni, Intel, ITC Infotech, Juniper. Gridlock Hackathon witnessed entries pouring in from cities and towns all across India, while majority of the entries are from Bangalore, hundreds of participants have registered from places like Pune, Jalandhar, Dehradun, Kolkata, Jaipur, Vellore, Kerala, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kharagpur, Mumbai, Kochi, Delhi, UP, Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Udaipur, Chandigarh. In addition, entries have been received from Seattle, Atlanta, Indiana, Syria, Canada, Romania, Bangladesh and Dubai. The competition has also received a phenomenal response among the student community from Institutions like IIM Ahmedabad, Purdue University, IIT BHU, IIIT Chittoor and AIT Pune, among others. Participants are using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning models to design and implement a solution that integrates different systems to make traffic smooth and sustainably manageable.
Born in Bengaluru, Flipkart has changed the way India shops through its technology innovations. Flipkart strongly believes in the culture of open innovation which means that society at large should benefit from what Flipkart does. In its quest to give back to the city where it was established, Flipkart launched the Gridlock Hackathon that could help ease Bengaluru’s traffic problem. With this aim in mind, Flipkart invited the tech community and concerned citizens to crowdsource innovative, implementable solutions that could help ease Bengaluru’s perennial traffic problem. Additionally, Flipkart invited entries from companies like Amazon, Google, Uber, Ola, Microsoft, Cisco, Infosys, Wipro, Accenture among many others.
