greater noida hundreds of talented youngsters mostly engineering students from india and 22 african countries will match coding wits in a 36hour hackathon that will begin on tuesday at gautam buddha university which is hosting the unesco india africa hackathonorganised by the all india council for technical education aicte the ministry of education and the ministry of external affairs mea in collaboration with unesco the hackathon will be inaugurated by up chief minister yogi adityanath and union education minister dharmendra pradhan on tuesdaythe hackathon will see 100 teams with more than 600 participants trying to find the right tech key to crack 20 problems in areas like education renewable energy drinking water and sanitation agriculture and health and hygieneparticipants will for example be asked how to better tap solar energy through better technical solutions in panels ways of improving soil health information learning outcomes for differently abled children and support tools for electric vehiclesthe hackathon will be held at the universitys cavernous main auditorium which has a seating capacity of 1800 on monday as the foreign participants trooped in draping scarves designed in their national colours clicking selfies and shaking hands the auditorium was a cultural melting pot where many new friendships were made to its legions of fans indian food added more im ready for the hackathon but right now im enjoying indian food its the best food ive ever had it was amazing and delicious said nsanzimana gilbert a student of makerere university ugandathe food was sumptuous indians are lovely and caring people i will always come back to taste indian food said mundal aloa another student the hackathon will be judged by a jury of experts at the end of the fourday event on november 25 twenty winning teams will get prize money of rs 3 lakh each officials said the best solutions will be patented in the name of the students who devise them and will be used by the government as well as the startup ecosystem about 350 participants have come from 22 african countries such as kenya tanzania ethiopia zambia lesotho botswana cameroon zimbabwe etc while over 250 indian participants from iits nits technical colleges etc will take part in the event they have all been accommodated in hostels of gbu as well as guest houses said professor ravindra sinha vicechancellor of gbudr abhay jere chief innovation officer cio of the ministry of education and nodal officer for the event told toi each team will have 6 members and a mentor the participants are the best technicalengineering students of their countries who were selected and then trained for a month in their language like arabic french spanish english etc they were subsequently tested on november 15 and those scoring above 70 were selected each team will comprise students from different countries said jere there are multiple objectives he added of the event foremost is promoting india as an educational hub with modern infrastructure secondly its a means to encourage startups with the come to