India is a nation with maximum people dependent on agriculture and other allied sectors for their livelihood and producing huge quantity of food-grains and other things required for people to remain alive. But it is really surprising that earlier Governments provided least attention to this crucial sector, which also plays major role in boosting economy of the country. Understanding the gravity of the situation, the ruling Government accorded a focused attention to the sector not only for uplifting the socio-economic status of people but also to enhance the productivity for making the nation self-dependent in the sector. Among several such initiatives, Indian Council of Agricultural Research with its National Agricultural Higher Education Project and Crop Science Division is organizing Hackathon 3.0 ‘KRITAGYA’ on promoting ‘speed breeding for crop improvement’. Taking forward the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi through National Education Policy-2020, the program will provide an opportunity to students/faculties/entrepreneurs/innovators and others to showcase innovative approaches and technology solutions to promote innovation for crop improvement. Under the guidance of the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar, such initiatives will give impetus to the desired rapid results in the crop sector with the ability to learn, innovation and solutions, employability and entrepreneurship. It will also encourage greater adoption of technology enabled solutions in the country. According to Dr Rakesh Chandra Aggrawal, Deputy Director General (Agricultural Education) and National Director, National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP), the definition of KRITAGYA is: KRI for Krishi meaning Agriculture, TA for Taknik meaning Technology and GYA for Gyan meaning Knowledge. In this competition, students, faculty and innovators/entrepreneurs from any university/technical institute across the country can apply and participate in the program as a group. The participating group shall consist of maximum 4 participants, with not more than one faculty and / or more than one innovator or entrepreneur. Participating students can collaborate with local start-ups, students from technology institutes and can win up-to INR 5 Lakh while registration for event shall take place till September 26, 2022. During 2020-21 and 2021-22 NAHEP in association with Agricultural Engineering and Animal Science Divisions of ICAR organized Hackathon 1.0 and 2.0 to promote the innovation in Farm Mechanization and in Animal Science, respectively. The events witnessed immense participation across the country where more than 784 teams i.e., 3,000 participants actively participated in Hackathon 1.0 and more than 269 teams participated in Hackathon 2.0. At national level, 4 teams were awarded by Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare with a cash prize of Rs 9 lakh. This event is also extending the support to winners for further development in their concept propositions, its scalability and future plan in collaboration with Agri Business Incubators, MSMEs and other investors through support of ICAR. ICAR commenced NAHEP with the assistance of World Bank (WB) in November 2017. The overall objective of NAHEP is to support participating Agricultural Universities (AUs) and ICAR in providing more relevant and higher quality education to the students.
