HackM

1) Alternative financing options for the village level entrepreneurs

Context: By definition, financial inclusion or inclusive financing is the delivery of financial services at affordable costs to sections of disadvantaged and low-income segments of society. Financial inclusion offers banks with commercial means to reach the unbanked. Digital financial inclusion (DFI) offers a unique opportunity for banks to avail of a digital leapfrogging phenomenon in emerging and high growth regions. Microfinancing and affordable credit offerings continue to be a challenge in rural India, with poor or limited information about a customer’s credit worthiness. For traditional lenders such as banks, extending credit to small businesses is often too costly, given the small loan size. Driven further by regulation, banks have reduced their exposure to smaller businesses in recent years.

Problem Statement: A solution that helps local small businesses manage their finances and provide relevant fund raising opportunities based on location, credit details, industry, income etc.

2) Digital Rural Insurance Inclusion

Context: Digital technologies can enable efficient platforms and cost-effective channels to expand the scope and coverage of insurance, especially in the field of micro insurance. Government-backed schemes like the Prime Minister’s Jan Jeevan Bima Yojana (PMJJBY), Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana etc. can be coupled with innovative technologies that harness the advantages of eKYC and Aadhar for speedy enrolment

Problem Statement: Provide digital solutions to achieve target enrolments for government insurance schemes that provides everything from information regarding schemes, eligibility, and enrolment portal.

3) Cashless village solution

Context: While 27% of India uses Internet, there is limited connectivity and knowledge for the same, in the rural sector. While there is some progress to overcome these challenges from private players in the wallet and microfinancing space, public sector financial firms still lag in the inclusion and awareness for inclusion in the fin-tech space.

Problem statement: Build a solution that can tackle this problem and can enable rural population to have a digital financial experience.

1) Centralized handheld information and advice tool for Farmers

Context: Farmers have limited access to knowledge of latest technologies and farming methodologies. Current state agri-education campaigns, Department of Agriculture krishi handbooks and radio programs such as Vasundra Krishi Vahini have one sided outreach with limited local feedback and communication.

Problem Statement: Your hack should be, but not limited to: One stop solution through which farmers can submit their queries to trusted sources and experts, in their own language through voice or multimedia. Submitting and responding to queries should be accessible across multiple platforms and multiple national and regional languages.

2) Farming as a Service

Context: Agriculture contributes about 17% to India’s GDP. With a value of approximately $390 billion, it is one of the most important economic activities in India. Around 135 lakh families in rural Maharashtra depend on agriculture. Farmers face various issues related to small land holdings, labour, low soil quality, limited access to machinery, quality seeds, fertilizers and market information leading to poor crop selection and inefficient use of fertilizers, seeds and services.

Problem Statement: Develop a digital solution to support farmers by providing on-demand labour and technology services based on location, crop selection and budget.

3) Liquor tracking mechanism

Context: It has been observed that the Excise department did not have a mechanism in place to trace the excisable items like intoxicants and intoxicating liquor leaving the manufacturers premises. As per the Maharashtra revenue and state excise department 2,434 cases had been registered in Mumbai city and suburbs leading to Rs2.69 crore worth liquor. Currently the transport permit passes issued for transporting of these liquors are done manually on paper, making it difficult for the department to keep track of each bottle of liquor going out of the manufacturer premises. This has limited transparency over the movement of excisable goods leading to increased illicit liquor production and leakages leading to decreased Excise revenues.

Problem Statement: Need to develop an optimised, re-engineered, real time reporting solution to make it suitable for an online implementation for the department to track and tag each bottle of liquor going out of the manufacturer premises and making the complete supply chain efficient.

4) Interlinking of campus placements in Higher Educational Institutes and Universities across Maharashtra

Context: Today, Maharashtra lacks a centralized master database regarding campus placements in state managed Technical Institutes and Universities. With limited insights in placement numbers through Higher Educational Institutes, state policy makers have a restricted view into un-employability and training requirements across various fields.

Problem Statement: Build a system and a platform that can easily store and track all this information and is accessible with latest numbers in real time. This will be extremely useful for the Government of Maharashtra to come out with focused policy based solutions for increasing skill based employment.

5) AIDS awareness solution

Context: Despite millions spent on AIDS awareness campaigns, a significant lack of knowledge about HIV and AIDS persists. The problem with traditional approaches is that the association with taboo topics and high stigma has led to many curricula not being taught, not being effective, or even being banned by law. This is particularly true in India, with the third largest HIV-positive population globally.

Problem statement: Develop an easy-access, device agnostic solution that decouples HIV education from sex education using a culturally appropriate approach.

6) Women welfare and crime reporting solution

Context: Crimes against women increased 33 percent over the last four years in India, with cruelty by husbands and relatives being the most widely reported crime, according to the latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Government of Maharashtra has implemented many women welfare schemes in the State. These schemes fall under various departments having different administrative control, with each scheme having different eligibility criteria for beneficiaries. Many women are not able to get the maximum benefit of the schemes due to limited awareness.

Problem Statement: A one stop solution focussing on women across the state, which is a go-to point for all available schemes, eligibility requirements, application forms and required supporting documents. Further the solution should have facilities to report any offense on women with data mapping of police stations, contact details for women welfare associations and mapping of violence on women by location and type.

1) Online portal to map and predict spread of communicable diseases

Context: A report released by ICMR titled “India: Health of nation’s states” states that about 24% of the annual deaths reported across Maharashtra occur due to spread of communicable diseases such as Swine flu, Dengue and Malaria etc. Mapping of such diseases can help administrators, policy makers and epidemiologists to study as well as implement control measures. Current records, maintained by state and local agencies can be initially leveraged to develop base disease maps. These maps need to be periodically updated through centralized IT systems, which can analyse and help predict the spread patterns across the region.

Problem Statement: Build a data mapping solution through a centralized IT system that can analyse the severity and predict the disease spread pattern.

2) State school infrastructure facility tracking

Context: The Right to Education (RtE) Act 2009 mandates certain infrastructure norms for each public school. Tracking the implementation of building school infrastructure as per norms, their maintenance, and feedback from various stakeholders to the Government authorities, and timely action, all on a large scale is a challenge

Problem Statement: An easy access solution to allow all relevant stakeholders to track status of infrastructure facilities in state-run schools, like toilets, drinking water, barrier-free access etc., and provide feedback on their maintenance.

3) Distributed ledger technology (DLT) in government services

Context: Distributed ledger technologies (DLT) has shown scope for implementation in various government processes. The technology possesses the ability to generate efficiencies in various government process. DLT, through the implementation of smart contracts, has displayed potential use cases in exchange of money, property, shares, or anything of value. DLT creates digital immutable copies of records which can be verified at various stages of government checks. These immutable and verifiable records assist in improving transparency and efficiencies in the government ecosystem. DLT has displayed the potential to improve processes such as asset management, exchange of health records and land records, funds tracking and auditing, supply chain management, etc. In the Indian context, the push towards digitization of records and services has created an environment for the implementation of DLT based technologies.

Problem Statement: Develop distributed ledger based secure solutions for mapping of beneficiaries across multiple state social welfare schemes. The solution will help the State track in real time cases where beneficiaries have exhausted eligible schemes and track additional schemes they may be eligible for.