Veraz wins hackathon on migrant labour

KOCHI: A blockchain-based solution allowing direct engagement between employers and their employees has won the top prize at a first-of-its-kind hackathon in India to address the challenges faced by migrant labourers. Team 'Veraz', a technology company, represented by Nikhil V. Chandran and Anoop V.S., won the first prize at the maiden "BlockathonForChange', hosted by Maker Village. The team received a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh and have been given an opportunity to incubate their venture at the Kerala Startup Mission. Infillcube bagged second prize and received a cash award of Rs 50,000. Iridescent won Rs 25,000 as the third prize. A six-member expert panel made the final evaluations and selected the winners.

P. Vijayan, inspector-general, Ernakulam range, inaugurated the valedictory function and distributed prizes to the winners. Alexis Wolff, information officer at the U.S. consulate-general, Chennai, D Dhanuraj, chairman, Centre for Public Policy Research and Prasad Balakrishnan Nair, CEO, Maker Village spoke. The hackathon was organised in partnership with the US consulate general, Chennai, CPPR and Kerala Startup Mission. The two-day hackathon saw inventors, software developers, programmers, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and startups from various parts of the country present their solutions to the issues of migrant labourers.

The hackathon was organised as the migrant labourers are often a disadvantaged and vulnerable group because of social, economic and cultural issues associated with migration. The hackathon was aimed at finding solutions to the challenges of migration of labourers which warrants immediate attention both at the ground level and the policy level. Twenty teams were selected from the applications received. All solutions developed during the hackathon remain the intellectual property of the developers, who are free to build on these.