Amazon announces ‘Amazon Smbhav- Build for India’ Hackathon

Amazon India today announced the launch of the ‘Amazon Smbhav- Build for India’ Hackathon organized by Skillenza, supported by Amazon. ‘Amazon Smbhav- Build for India’ Hackathon, a part of Amazon’s flagship event – Smbhav, aims at bringing the community of developers together and enable development of unique and disruptive solutions towards creating an AatmaNirbhar Bharat.

‘Amazon Smbhav –Build for India’ Hackathon has been designed to provide developers and software engineers with the opportunity to build innovative solutions and solve real-world problems. The 10 winners are eligible to win cumulative cash prizes of up to INR 15 lakhs from Skillenza in addition to getting redeemable Amazon Web Services credits and access to informative webinars and mentoring sessions provided by industry leaders. The hackathon is open for working professionals with teams ranging from 1 to 4 members. Additional details on the hackathon are available on https://www.smbhav.com/summit/hackathon. Registrations for the ‘Amazon Smbhav- Build for India’ hackathon have begun and will close on 22 March 2021.

Pranav Bhasin, Director, MSME & Selling Partner Experience, Amazon India said, “It’s our firm belief that technology and innovation will be a key enabler in realizing the potential of India in the 21^st century. India has a thriving startup ecosystem and over the past few years, we have seen great examples of business ideas and product innovation emerge that have been transformative in nature. Young entrepreneurs are eager to drive a change and are brimming with ideas that can drive step-function change in the trajectory of India. We are happy to sponsor  ‘Amazon Smbhav – Build for India’ Hackathon organized by Skillenza as it will not only empower entrepreneurs to realize their full potential but also support the growth of India’s startup ecosystem by offering them access to the right ecosystem. Amazon Smbhav is one of our biggest platforms that enables, empowers and enriches young entrepreneurs from any part of India to make it big.”

The two themes for the hackathon, ‘Business Innovation’ and ‘Sustainability & Healthcare’ are aimed at empowering ideas and businesses that focus on technology innovation and creative strategic proposals that will promote and enable further development and self-sufficiency in India. The theme ‘Business Innovation’ is one where, developers will work on building products that put the SMBs in the centre of the Indian economy. The areas of innovation include SaaS for SMBs like book-keeping and accounting  that would put the SMB sector on the fast track, develop innovative solutions for bringing SMB online along quick website creation tools, plug n play e-commerce solutions for creating online stores, and build tools which can enable invoice discounting, peer to peer lending, faster and secure digital payments.  The other theme, ‘Sustainability and Healthcare’ is focused on creating products that can address areas that are a priority for the world at large. Under this umbrella theme, Amazon is seeking ideas that will create solutions for smart cities, energy efficiency, data analytics engines that make cities run efficiently and productizing high impact innovations which can operate at scale and provide affordable medical solutions to the distant corners of the country.

The competition will involve six phases including outreach, team creation and ideation; first shortlisting, product building, final shortlisting, live demo and winners’ announcement.

The second edition of ‘Amazon Smbhav’ will be hosted from April 15-18th, 2021. Smbhav 2021 will bring together important industry and thought leaders for invigorating discussions on way ahead towards creating an AatmaNirbhar Bharat. Amazon Smbhav will be a four-day virtual summit hosted around the theme of ‘Unlocking Infinite Possibilities for India’ across sectors like manufacturing, retail, logistics, IT/ITeS, content creators, start-ups, brands and entrepreneurs across India. Over 30,000 participants are expected to participate at Amazon Smbhav, learning about best practices and industry trends from over 70 speakers. Amazon supported events are organised by third parties and Amazon does not decide and is not responsible for the selection of participants, their evaluation or the winners of these events. The events are not open to employees of Amazon and its affiliates.