Chandigarh Police Hackathon
Initialization
My friend Reetik said, “ Bro we have not gone anywhere recently together”. We are from the same school (Sainik School Kapurthala) and now studying in the same college (Chandigarh University). That thing stuck in my subconscious mind. His suggestion was that we should go somewhere after our final exams. Yeah, our final exams were going on at that time.
It was our second last exam and I saw the post of Chandigarh Police Hackathon in our official class group. I thought, “ Okay this is great, we want to go somewhere and we also never attended a hackathon before so it would be a new experience”. Reetik, Harnoor and I are from the same school. So it was time for our gang to spend little time and have this new experience. And I started filling the form. The maximum team size was 3 and our gang fit very well into it. Of course, we had to submit an idea for selection. Well, our aim was to just attend it and have a new experience. Moreover, It was the first time Chandigarh Police was organising such a hackathon. So we didn’t want to miss it. The idea that we submitted was way over our limits. We didn’t have the burden of implementing it. As we just wanted to get there. Yes, you heard it right.
There was a little difficulty that the hackathon was on 30/11/19 and 1/12/19. And we had our last exam on 4th December. But there was this gap of four days which make it possible for us to attend this hackathon. After this long time, we are habitual of studying one day before the examination. So, the timing was not a big problem for us.
Team Name
The funny thing we had was our team name. My teammates didn’t know it till the day of the hackathon. Our team name was “WaterMelon” with ‘M’ capital. I was filling the form in the night so you can’t blame me :). Everyone laughed (including my teammate) when they hear it for the first time. If you didn’t then you have some problem, my friend, consult some good doctor ( 😁 just kidding !!!).
Beginning
After the second last exam on 29/11/19, we were ready for our new experience. We checked the address on Google Maps and find out how far it is and all that. In the timing, it was mention that registration will be from 8:30 to 9:30. And Google Maps was showing that it would take around 1 hour to reach the venue. So my friend Harnoor (overexcited maybe!! 😄) told that we need to wake up around 6 a.m. and should get a cab around 6:30 or 7 to reach there on time. Without a second thought, we all agreed(overexcited maybe!! 😄). The thought that it is too early didn’t strike us till we woke in the morning. All of us woke up at 6 O’ clock in the morning. Then my friend Harnoor again suggested that it was too early we should have breakfast and then go. We again agreed ( with sleepy eyes 😴 ). We had no doubt on our friend Harnoor for his time management skills 😃. We slept, again woke up, had breakfast and took a cab to the venue. But we reached a little late and missed the snakes over there. We were greeted with a T-shirt and a cup.
Everyone over there was very excited and energetic. They were very polite and helpful. The welcome speech by the panel motivated us to work on our solution and deliver something useful. They said that police need to stay one step ahead of the criminals. And that’s why police need the help of technology and we should try our best to build something that could help them. We realized that whatever we were going to develop it was going to have an impact. So we decided to give our best.
There were different categories in which we can develop our solutions. Moreover, there was a penetration testing competition also. An IP address was given for penetration.
Especially for Reetik
Our hacker Saab, Reetik Sharma was very happy because of penetration testing. He was like “Nmap chlaunga, dunia ko hilaunga!!! 😂” (Translation: Gonna rock the world with Nmap!!! — — I hope so). But Nmap was not supporting him on that day. Nmap was like “96% done and now I am going to sleep, rest you take care.” Reetik was like “Nmap jinda baad !!”(Translation: Long live Nmap). Okay Reetik 😊, I am not going to do this again.
Show Time
Finally, the moment came when we had to show our work. There was a panel of 8 members. Everyone was preparing a PPT and documentation. It was required to submit it beforehand. Some of the teams have prepared an extraordinary PPT and documentation. When many of the participants shown there work then we realized that we need a PPT and documentation while going before the panel. So here comes our star Harnoor Singh. He quickly prepared the PPT and documentation. Both were looking great. The panel was discussing the ideas and implementation very deeply with the teams that’s why it was taking a lot of time. Our turn was at 15th so we slept before it. We didn’t have proper sleep in the night. We were a little nervous before our turn but the panel was so friendly and supportive. They hear out our idea and implementation carefully. They appreciated our work and took a great interest in it.
Result Time
Around 11 p.m. all the teams presented their implementation and it was time for the results. They didn’t put much suspense or any speech before it. Directly announced the result. I still remember the sentences going like “third prize goes to …..” , “second prize goes to ……”, and “Winner team is ‘WaterMelon’ with ‘M’ capital”.
Three cheer for team “WaterMelon” Hip hip hurray, Hip hip Hurray, Hip hip hurray.
Thanks
To Chandigarh Police for organising such a great hackathon and Nvidia, HDFC Bank, Stellar for supporting the event. Nvidia provided us with GPU access. The hackathon was well organised and conducted. I hope more events like this will be organised. Thank you for motivating us to develop solutions which will help in the betterment of society.
Thank you Harnoor and Reetik.
