the beckn-a-thon 2021 wrap
“beckn-enabled world” was the desired outcome of this year’s beckn-a-thon. powered by the beckn protocol, beckn-a-thon is a one-of-its-kind virtual hackathon event that aimed to encourage indian coders to use their exemplary coding skills and think outside the box to come up with innovative solutions that can help solve the common man’s everyday problems and arrive at the desired outcome.
the commencement of beckn-a-thon & the idea submission phase
beckn-a-thon was launched in the mid of august this year with registrations open from august 15, 2021. beckn-a-thon witnessed a whooping response with 1,200 registrations. the registration saw both professionals and students from the technology ecosystem in the country. these teams had immense caliber and hailed from prominent universities and companies, vis-a-vis amazon, google, pwc, directi, tcs, and from colleges such as iits, iims, nits, bits pilani, srm, vit, dtu among many others.
the idea submission phase witnessed ~200 idea submissions across the five categories ie. retail, healthcare, innovation, delivery & mobility.
the prototype phase
beckn-a-thon was launched in the mid of august this year with registrations open from august 15, 2021. beckn-a-thon witnessed a whooping response with 1,200 registrations. the registration saw both professionals and students from the technology ecosystem in the country. these teams had immense caliber and hailed from prominent universities and companies, vis-a-vis amazon, google, pwc, directi, tcs, and from colleges such as iits, iims, nits, bits pilani, srm, vit, dtu among many others.
the idea submission phase witnessed ~200 idea submissions across the five categories ie. retail, healthcare, innovation, delivery & mobility.
the prototype phase
once shortlisted, the teams leveraged the tutorials and tech onboarding sessions along with the apis provided to them by the beckn foundation to bring themselves to speed via a steep learning curve. by mid-september, ~50 submissions were shortlisted based on 4 chief parameters namely: desirability, viability, feasibility & scalability. these 50 shortlisted teams went through multiple informative sessions conducted by the experts from beckn foundation.
exploring the protocol along with the sample apis, the participants ramped up on beckn specifications and developed strategies to incorporate the beckn specifications in their prototypes. while some teams jumped on to execution, others requested for q&a sessions by experts, which was addressed by the beckn foundation via virtual sessions. these sessions along with back & forth with the experts helped the participants ensure they build a powerful prototype.
the evaluation phase
the submissions were evaluated in great detail, both strategically and technically. the submissions were assessed on beckn protocol adoption and a holistic system design approach.
the panel of judges had to further narrow down the choices to only 5 prototypes, based on how well they were using the beckn protocol and what value they were adding overall to the common man’s life via democratized beckn enabled ecosystem design.
the parameters used in evaluating the shortlisted prototypes ranged from: the proportion of completion of a working prototype, to the percentage of proposal achieved. from the features in the idea vs. features in the actual prototype to the projected number of use cases of the prototype, the overall user experience, information hierarchy, clicks per unit transaction, the ease of use ie. amount of tech savviness required to use the functionalities and of course, the transactions via beckn protocol. the order-to-transaction lifecycle (discovery, order, fulfillment, post-fulfillment), size of the potential transaction size, speed of the transactions commencement and implementation, and finally the relevance & strategic alignment of the idea submitted to beckn’s current vision & mission. tackling these parameters was surely rigorous and challenging for the participants
the 5 shortlisted prototypes
after the much development phase, 5 prototypes emerged from the evaluation phase. these were created by a diverse group of participants, coming from all walks of life, in terms of experience, expertise and ideas.
the final winners (in order of ranking)
1) sustainable cities (winner)
founded by an experienced team of engineers and entrepreneurs, passionate about a sustainable future in the category of urban mobility, team sustainable cities is the winner of beckn-a-thon 2021. they have created a well defined prototype, fuelled by insights from wri (world resources institute) and with live data from kmrl (kochi metro rail limited), as an open api ecosystem for the players in the mobility space to consume and build on top of; very aptly in alignment with how the adoption of beckn protocol envisions democratized societies.
this extraordinary team is beckn-a-thon’s champion team. they will receive the grand prize of inr 1,00,000, some fantastic beckn merchandise and most importantly, a chance to collaborate on live beckn projects. their vision to open up the api ecosystem for consumption, resonates optimally with beckn protocol’s potential to tackle urban mobility.
the team:
2) cosapa (first runner up)
the first runner up is team cosapa, a four-member, student team, who have tried to tackle the grave issues emerging out of the pandemic covid-19, using avant-garde technology, providing online consultations, payment facilities and iot enabled fitness solutions, using the beckn-enabled chatting facility. their proactive & reactive healthcare approach rendered their prototype worthy of recognition.
3) reinventing healthcare (second runner up)
4) hitaya (top 5)
next up is team hitaya, led by sayan sinha, student at mckv institute of engineering 116 – another single member team, which created a smart wallet. with the help of blockchain technology, hitaya’s employee welfare dapp can be used by employees to transfer tokens during a purchase, or to store contact in a central ledger blockchain via smart contract, using the beckn protocol. hope you enjoy the beckn merchandise and goodies coming your way very soon.
