North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong has been selected by MIC/AICTE for hosting Toycathon 2021 Grand Finale, an event conducted by the Government of India to promote indigenous toy industry. Around ten teams from different parts of India have confirmed their participation in the grand finale from June 22 to 24.
Stressing upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Vocal for Local’ in toy industry, the Ministry of Education mooted the idea of multi-track nation-wide inter-ministerial Toycathon.
The Toycathon 2021 is being organised jointly by the Ministry of Education in coordination with five other ministries – Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises, and Ministry of Textiles. Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell at All India Council for Technical Education is acting as nodal agency for organising Toycathon 2021.
This inter-ministerial Toycathon focuses on conceptualising new and innovative toys using local materials which are economical, affordable, safe, environment friendly, with exceptional high quality for both Indian and global markets.
The proposed Toycathon has three tracks. Track 1 is for Junior Level participants i.e., primarily school students. They mainly focused on designing toys for kids of age group 0-3 years and 4-10 years.
Track 2 is for Senior Level participants who are students and faculty from higher education institutions. This group focused on developing concepts for 0-3 years, 4-10 and 11 years and above. This segment primarily focused on electronics, sensors, mechatronics, and toys based on AI and ML approaches, AR-VR-XR and robotics.
Track 3 is for Startup-Professional Level that includes overall innovation and development of prototypes. These prototypes are expected to enable the toy industry in boosting up the production along with improving the quality of toys in Indian market.
The Toycathon 2021 began with inviting problem statements and finalising top problem statements, identifying nodal centres, identifying evaluators, experts and dignitaries, months before the grand finale. Then the participation was invited from students and professionals.
Around 14,130 teams have submitted 17,770 different ideas on innovative toys based on themes like education, Indian history, culture and moral values, social and human values, psychological development, agricultural implements and tools, and knowledge about India.
The contest was initially conceptualised in two formats i.e., Physical Toycathon for Physical Toys and Digital Toycathon for Digital Toys. Owing to the safety of students and participants the Physical Toycathon has been postponed and now only Digital Hackathon is being conducted from June 22 to 24 due to prevailing Covid-19 pandemic.
The digital Toycathon has received a phenomenal response from enthusiastic innovators and now 1567 selected teams will be participating virtually through 85 nodal centres.
During the grand finale the selected teams will virtually present their toys in front of the jury panel that comprises experts from premier institutes. The teams will receive mentoring from experts during the hackathon and teams will have to improve their toys/games as per expert suggestions.
Toycathon will not only connect young minds to national institutions, this premier Hackathon for innovation in the toy industry will also instill the spirit of inquiry, critical thinking and life skill.
