Conducted by New York University, with hackers from all over the world

New Delhi, March 17, 2022:  The team of students from Plaksha University, one of India’s largest collective philanthropy efforts to build a tech university for the future, was adjudged the winner in a global-level hackathon conducted by New York University.

Over 1800 registrations were received by the University, 840 hackers collaborated and submitted 100+ projects worldwide. At HackNYU, students are given the tools to create innovative solutions for challenges in the four tracks: Sustainability, Education, Health & Well-being, and Financial Empowerment. The competition was organised on Feb 26th, 2022, in the Financial Empowerment track. This track is for hackers who want to use technology to improve the user experience by integrating it into financial transactions.

The winning team had B.Tech 1st year students from Plaksha University - Shreevardhan Shah and Saumya Choudhary - and a student from NIT Durgapur Rohitashwa Pareek.

Shreevardhan Shah is from Kolkata and has done his schooling from Delhi Public School Newtown. Saumya Choudhary is from Gurgaon and has done her schooling from Delhi Public School, RK Puram.

The students created ‘Ministore’- a mobile-first no-code and e-commerce platform. In this, users can drop in on the app and create a quick no-code site in under 5 minutes. By adding a store name and product details further, the user can connect their account to accept payments, and voila! Their Amazon-like site is created.  This also provides individuals a platform to showcase and sell their products to the world – a great step forward in making them financially powerful without having any technical knowledge or prior coding experience. Integrated add-ons like Facebook ads and delivery services enable their users to focus on what they truly love doing, as Ministore takes care of everything else.

Commenting about his students winning the competition, Prof. Rudra Pratap, the Founding Vice Chancellor of Plaksha University (former Deputy Director of Indian Institute of Science) said, “We are pleased to see our students proving their mettle in this international competition, demonstrating their keen understanding of tech to achieve specific business goals. At Plaksha University we aim to foster an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation to introduce students to a new way of thinking. Our vision has always been to prepare students to solve real life challenges. Our students have worked extremely hard on this amazing project that will improve user experience across several communities. We extend our hearty congratulations to them for achieving this feat and believe that the learning experience they gained through the competition will add immense value to not only their work but also their lives."

HackNYU is a 48-hour hackathon hosted at NYU locations around the world. The event challenges participants to use technology in innovative ways.

About Plaksha University:

Plaksha University is one of India’s largest collective philanthropy efforts to build a tech university of global eminence. Founded by 100+ technology and business leaders from 5 countries, Plaksha envisions to reimagine technology education and research for India and the world. With strong partnerships with UC Berkeley, Purdue, SRI International and IIT Kanpur, Plaksha aims to create an entrepreneurial and research ecosystem creating a new generation of catalytic leaders. The university collapses the traditional boundaries of engineering and promotes interdisciplinary learning by combining technology, design and entrepreneurship.

The leaders behind Plaksha include business leaders such as Neeraj Aggarwal, Chairman – Asia Pacific, BCG; Hitesh Oberoi, Co-promoter, MD & CEO, Info Edge (Naukri.com); Ashish Gupta, Founder, Benori Knowledge Solutions; CP Gurnani, MD & CEO, Tech Mahindra; Gagan Hasteer, VP, Content Engineering, Netflix; Manas Fuloria, Co-founder and CEO, Nagarro; Mohit Thukral, Founder and CEO, Vivtera Global Solutions; Pankaj Chaddah, Co-founder, Zomato; Pramod Bhasin, Chairman, Clix Capital; Vineet Nayyar, Former Executive Vice Chairman, Tech Mahindra; Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Vice Chairman, Bharti Enterprises; Srikanth Velamakanni, Co-founder, Fractal Analytics, among others. Corporate donors include companies like Bharti Foundation, Mphasis, Axis Bank and Motilal Oswal. The global community of business leaders who founded Plaksha can be seen here.