“The world is changing and we have to change along with it,” said a senior official of AICTE. “That is the spirit and that is celebration,” AICTE Director Manpreet Singh Manna said in his address to two-day Smart India Hackathon 2017, the World’s largest digital product building competition that began at Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology.

It was declared open by Union HRD Minister Prakash Javdekar through video conference at 26 centres across the country.

“Motivation and spirit have no language. We are thankful to i4C, NIC, Persistent, NASSCOM and other organisers, who came forward to AICTE and MHRD voluntarily for this. I am thrilled to say we are going to be the participants of the world’s largest coding competition,” he added.

State Municipal Administration Minister S P Velumani said the Government had various programmes for the development in schools and the higher education department.

He said Rs159. 32 crore was spent for free laptops to the school and college students and 20,000 laptpos were given free of cost. The government distributed over 1.97 lakh free bicycles to the Class XI students at a cost of Rs.35.78 crore.

The State Government was also focussing on the development of education for girls, especially for those from particularly from the most backward and minority communities,

CTS Technology Director Senthil Ramalingam was the guest of honour and Sri Krishna Institutions Chairperson and Managing Trustee S Malarvizhi presided over the function.

A total 325 students representing 54 teams across the country are competing in this centre, and 11 teams from th college were participating in other centres.