Leading by it’s example of being the home to forward-thinkers and changemakers, challenging status quo every now and then, Project Deep Blue came alive in May 2015 , as an unique initiative of Mastek, encouraging engineering students to solve social problems using coding skills; to come up with meaningful technical solutions over a course of three months. Project Deep Blue throws up challenges for participating engineering graduates, to create working solutions for real life problems from the social sector.
Teams which make it through the gruelling selection process, use latest cutting edge technology like Neural nets, social data analytics, machine learning, advanced image processing, IoT etc. to build a working solutions in a short span of 3 months.
The Beginning
In the spirit of Mastek’s values and ideas, Project Deep Blue was conceptualised and kick-started in the year 2015, solely to provide opportunities to young, enterprising technology students for creating an impact on society by solving real-life problems and bettering the lives of the fellow citizens. The endeavour was to dig deeper than the surface and thus, expose the students to the core as well as soft skills and prepare them with employable skills for the future.
As the name signifies, the competition promotes “Deep Thinking”, “Innovation” and an awareness about the “Social Issues” in young engineering graduates. It provides an early start, mentorship and industry exposure to the Entrepreneurs and Technology Leaders of tomorrow.
The Selection and roll out
Whilst many choose to complain about the lack of connect between industry and academia, Project Deep Blue serves as an impeccable platform for the engineering workforce of tomorrow, to come and test their technical acumen (once selected from the first round of screening) under the mentorship of ‘’industry experts’’ from Mastek & Majesco, who volunteer to guide these young minds to deliver significant and meaningful technical solutions for problems faced by the development sector.
Deep blue is different than other hackathons since, the association with students lasts for 3 months and they undergo holistic workshops, thus encouraging them to arrive at the best solutions. This very journey of knowing the unknown and the learnings thereof, create a huge impact on the participating students. Infact, this serves as a preparatory ground for them, before stepping into the corporate life or taking up the entrepreneurship mantle.
Only teams which are able to complete a working solution, qualify to participate in the semifinal. . The semifinal gives the opportunity to the teams to present their solutions to a technical jury. The selected teams, then, are given an opportunity to present their solutions to a larger audience, which includes academia and industry experts to evaluate the winning team.
The last 3 super successful seasons
The successful roll-out of the last three Seasons has made Project Deep Blue a coveted platform of innovation and deep thinking and a must attend therefore, for all engineering students. Its reach has been phenomenal, expanding to more than 18 campuses in and around Mumbai and Navi Mumbai alone. All the three seasons have witnessed the participation of over 2000 + students. Employees at Mastek and Majesco have contributed 8120 mentoring hours to groom the next line of professionals. Students were provided with trainings by our experts on topics like design thinking, engineering practices, UX, technical topics like image processing, social data analytics and presentation skills. This played a crucial role in building a sense of learning and contributing back to the society
Hybrid
These apps combine web-based and standalone applications that are built for a specific device, but acquire working data from the internet. The WhatsApp mobile app is an example of a hybrid application that utilises both, mobile and network resources. The performance of such applications should base upon mobile device parameters, as well as network parameters such as latency and bandwidth
Riding high on the stupendous success of the last three seasons, Project Deep Blue is all set to roll-out the much awaited Season 4, where we expect the competition to heat up, as we expand to campuses beyond Mumbai for the very first time. The excitement is already palpable as the countdown has begun.
Though the competition comes with a prize money of INR. 1 lac, the participants find the learnings and experience gained in the 3 months as priceless and as a great boost towards their career path.
Hear what some of our winners from Last Season have to say …
“Project Deep Blue is a brilliant way to bridge the gap between actual problems faced by NGOs, and students that are in search of interesting challenges”, says NISHANT SHANKAR
“It allowed me to enhance my skillset and implement algorithms that I had so far only learnt theoretically. The guidance provided by Mastek at every step of the way was helpful and supportive. But most of all presenting in front of a great panel and maintaining equanimity while answering the questions posed by such great minds was truly enriching. An experience to remember!”exclaims ANUSHRI ARORA
“The challenge also gave us an opportunity to present our solution to an esteemed panel of 25 which gave us perspective about how professionals approach a problem. Overall, out of all the hackathons I've participated, Deep Blue proved to be the best in terms of everything. Ranging from picking the exact problem statement to the continuous help and guidance throughout the duration of the competition!", adds ANIRUDDH CHANDRATRE
