Nova SBE Student Is One of the COLife Hackathon Winners
Promoted by Nova | 22 April 2022 Nova SBE Student Is One of the COLife Hackathon Winners

COLife, an alliance of six life science research institutes, organized its first hackathon dedicated to world food problems, and Smriti Sanjaykumar Singh, from Nova School of Business & Economics (Nova SBE) student, was one of the big winners.

Under the topic “Future Food Challenge”, COLife held its first hackathon, aimed at university students from different areas of expertise, last March 27. Nova SBE student Smriti Sanjaykumar Singh was one of the big winners by working, alongside her team, on a solution to grow crops in previously uncultivable areas with seawater using bacteria.

Eight teams participated in this ten-hour initiative and had as their main goal to answer the question “how to feed the world population in an ever-changing world?” with an innovative solution in a record time. This unique challenge’s objective was to find solutions for the 811 million people who, by 2020, didn’t have enough to eat and for the food demand that will increase by 70 % in years to come.

Smriti Singh’s team (who had students from areas such as Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Innovation in Food Production) presented a solution that would help grow more crops and also solve the problem of reliance on freshwater for agriculture. This and all other projects presented at the hackathon were important contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – numbers 2, 6, and 13 – zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, and climate action.

About the challenge, Smriti stated, “I definitely learned a lot out of this experience, not only from the science perspective but also in terms of collaborating with people who have knowledge in diverse fields and finding your role. (…) When we did end up winning, the feeling was elation because I felt like we were rewarded for all the work we put in during those intense ten hours. Also, it felt great that we were able to contribute to finding solutions to larger world problems.”

 


Nova SBE student Smriti Singh
 

COLife is an alliance of six research institutes aimed at maximizing scientific resources, services, and knowledge to share know-how and promote synergies. Smriti, a Nova SBE CEMS MIM and International Master’s in Management student, will spend next year at Copenhagen Business School now with this important award in her journey. Congratulations, Smriti!

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