Christ Virtual Fellowship & Hackathon Program 2020

The First Virtual Christ Fellowship and Hackathon event 2020 was conducted from 7th September 2020 to 5th October 2020 on the virtual platform Webex. The event was the brainchild of our very own BBA student Venkat Sujith and ably assisted by Hitesh Preetam and Divyesh. The faculty coordinator was Prof. Stanny Dias and the co-faculty coordinator was Prof Monica from the Department of Commerce and Management. The event saw more than twenty-seven participants from across campuses in India and abroad as well taking part.

The event was hosted by the Department of Commerce and Management and was supported and guided by Prof. Shubashree Acharya, the Head of the Department of Commerce and Management. 

The inauguration ceremony was conducted on the 7th of September and the event culminated on 5th of October with the announcement of the winners. The participation fee was Rs 5000 + GST for the entire event. The winning team received Rs 50000 and the runners-up received Rs 25000. 

  

Event Description:

Christ Virtual Fellowship & Hackathon Program was an Incredible Virtual Fellowship of Co-creation, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Collaboration for positive social change. The program's objective was to bring together people who wanted to impact the future of the world.

The purpose of the Fellowship & Hackathon was to give young leaders a platform that helped them to understand global problems and to develop potential solutions. In this Fellowship, Participants gained in-depth knowledge of ideation, action plan, business canvas, sustainable development goals, marketing & branding of start-up, organizational change & leadership, entrepreneurship. Speakers and mentors from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Egypt, Nepal, Myanmar, Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Singapore helped the fellows in coming up with solutions to tackle real-world problems. We collaborated with internationally recognized Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp which is an intensive program dedicated to brewing up young entrepreneurs from across the globe since most of the entrepreneurship events were dedicated to existing entrepreneurs and their goal is to “bring together many young entrepreneurs, students and professionals from around the world and place them on a common platform to innovate and create new start-ups by collaboration.”

In the Christ Virtual Hackathon 2020, participants were divided into five different groups where they worked on five significant sectors and challenges faced in the pandemic: Business & Innovation, Health Care, Education, Crisis Response & Vulnerable Population & inequalities. Participants brainstormed ideas and built sustainable business models to give a sustainable future for the next generation.

Winners & runners-up were rewarded with cash of Rs. 50000 & Rs.25000. The two best ideas have been mentioned below:

Health Care Challenge: The United Nations has warned against a mental illness crisis, as millions of people worldwide are surrounded by death, disease, isolation, poverty, and anxiety by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Solution: "Mind Ease" offers online therapy to people with serious mental issues. The online medium encourages people to take therapy without dealing with the stigma of being seen in a psychologist's clinic and making it more convenient.

Vulnerable Population & Inequalities Challenge: The shelter in place protocols have increased domestic violence reports worldwide. Women and children were particularly susceptible to the surge in domestic violence during this pandemic. Factors such as financial instability, emotional distress, and disruption of everyday activities, have made this threat significantly worse, mainly due to the lack of access to shelters, resources, and easily-accessible help available for victims of domestic violence during this time.

Solution: "Mission Suraksha Kavach" was to offer a discreet panic button that sends radio signals with location information and a live audio transmission screened for legitimacy issues and then recorded and reported to the police for immediate action to be taken.