Swachhathon, where people find solutions for their problems
Swachhathon 1.0 – Swachhata Hackathon is an attempt to crowd source solutions for some of the pressing problems faced by the country in Sanitation and Hygiene. MoDWS invited students from schools and colleges, professionals, organizations, startups and others to come up with exciting, innovative, novel and viable solutions in the categories mentioned below –
a) Monitoring usage of toilets
b) Triggering behaviour change
c) Toilet Technologies in Difficult terrains
d) Working solutions for maintenance and operations of school toilets.
e) Technological solutions for safe disposal of menstrual waste
f) Solution for early decomposition of fecal matter
In the First Round, the participants were required to submit their entries in the respective categories in MyGov portal. The submission of entries started from 2nd August until August 31st, 2017. Across the 6 mentioned problem categories, a total of 3053 applications were received across India and a few from US, Canada and South America.
The Second Round comprised of the shortlisted 57 participants, who were required to present their idea/solution in front of a jury. This round was held on 7th & 8th September, 2017 at AICTE, Delhi.
The final 30 selected participants gave a short presentation before a Grand Jury. Based on the cumulative assessment of the above rounds, the winners were announced for each category on 8th September, 2017.
Over two days, the participants were mentored on their presentation skills before these rounds mentored by experts in each category. They were given special mentoring on entrepreneurship skills by Atal Innovation Mission which also motivated them for incubation of their ideas.
The Swacchathon 1.0 initiative encouraged innovators to start thinking fresh ideas in the field of Sanitation and provided them a stage to showcase their innovations on a national scale. The journey has begun where all these innovators will join hands in making the Swachh Bharat Mission a success.
Glimpses of few Innovations
Mr. Ram Prakash Tiwari from PHED department, Arunachal Pradesh came up with an innovation where instead of bricks bamboo with plastic lining could be used in the twin pit toilet technology. Arunachal Pradesh is a difficult geographical terrain with very less motor-able roads. Masons and raw material for constructing the toilet comes from Assam which increases the cost of construction. This innovation uses local material and expertise of locals of Arunachal. It also makes use of waste plastic.
Mr. S. Sasikumar from Puducherry came up with low cost, easy to operate motorized cleaning too. School students from Tamil Nadu innovated with plastic cans to make low-cost urinals. This was successfully implemented in Koppal district in Karnataka.
Technological solution for safe disposal of menstrual waste received very interesting innovations. Aishwarya from Kerala came up with treating the used sanitary pads with a chemical solution and residue of which could be used for fertilizers and making grow bags. Elakiya from Tamil Nadu gave a solution to reuse the treated used sanitary pads for making paver bricks. Mr. Subhankar Bhattacharya from West Bengal made a zero emission incinerator.
Click here to view the complete list of winners
