Chandigarh witnessed a one-of-its-kind event over the weekend with a group of 4 young students Devansh Gupta (Founder), Aashman Verma, Ridhi Gupta and Naima Chhabra, supported by TestingXperts, a leading IT company, organising a Hackathon for Tricity school students. Hackathon, named Navikarnam 2018, gave the bright minds from Tricity an opportunity to put their coding and IT skills to use for societal cause and build software applications solving real-world problems.

As many as 61 participants from 16 teams from leading schools competed in the event, which was hosted at TestingXperts office in IT Park Chandigarh. The event ran for 2 days at the weekend where teams enthusiastically developed innovative and unique solutions across varied areas like Road Safety, Healthcare, Education, Workplace Security, e-Governance etc. Out of the 16 teams, 7 teams qualified for the final round which was evaluated by a panel of experts with 4 Jury members from IT Companies- TestingXperts, Xenon Stack and Softprodigy Systems.

In a hard-fought competition, first prize was bagged by St John's School, sector 26, Chandigarh for their project on improving Road safety with dynamic speed controller. The First Runners-Up position was taken by Bhavan Vidyalaya, Chandigarh for a project on Betterment of Youth by counselling for depression and medical issues and second Runner-up position was taken by Carmel Convent School, Sector 9, Chandigarh for a project on Help for Kids living with Cancer.

The event was graced by Chief Guest Mr. Ajay Shrivastava, Additional Director & Centre Head, STPI (Mohali) who addressed all the students and said: "It shows sensitivity towards Social Problems and You all did an amazing job". The winning teams received Trophies along with 'Smart Technology Gadgets' like Google Chromecast, JBL Bluetooth Speaker and Power Banks and a lot of goodies for every participant.

Speaking about the event, Mr. Manish Gupta, CEO of TestingXperts said: "This Hackathon was a perfect platform for young kids to showcase their talent and build something of social value. Industry and academics should collaborate more often to make Chandigarh a hub for innovation and encourage the growth of IT in the area". The event was a brainchild of 4 young school/ college students from Tricity and was supported by TestingXperts as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative.