KL students top Smart India Hackathon with rural-first solution
Hyderabad, Dec 18 (The CONNECT) – KL Deemed to be University (KLEF) has once again brought national recognition to Telangana by emerging as a national-level winner at the Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2025, securing a cash prize of ₹1.5 lakh for an innovative, low-cost solution aimed at automating classroom attendance in rural schools.
The winning solution addressed the problem statement “Low-Cost Automated Classroom Attendance for Rural Areas,” proposed by the Government of Punjab. The national finale was held at Chandigarh Engineering College, Landran (Punjab), where the KL Deemed to be University team outperformed over 500 teams from across the country to clinch the top position.
The award-winning team from the KL GNU Linux Users Group (KL GLUG) comprises B.Tech students P. Vamsi Krishna, Varun Sharma, V. Jashwanth, Madhuhan Shekhar, Ankita Behera, and Prabhsirat Kaur (IRD Department), mentored by Dr. Sripath Roy Koganti. In SIH 2025, six teams from KL Deemed to be University qualified for the national finals—five from the Vijayawada campus and one from the Hyderabad campus—with multiple teams progressing to the grand finale stages.
The winning solution integrates a hybrid RFID and face-recognition system to significantly reduce attendance time and enhance classroom efficiency. Beyond attendance, the platform enables data-driven Mid-Day Meal planning, features role-based mobile applications and dashboards, sends SMS alerts to parents, and is designed as a low-cost, scalable model suitable for large-scale government deployment.
The team’s success was rooted in prior hands-on innovation. Earlier, the students had developed “KL EATS,” a pre-order food solution for university canteens that saw wide adoption on campus. Built with support from KL GLUG and the Department of Experiential Learning, the project strengthened the team’s design thinking, grassroots problem-solving, and real-world execution skills—capabilities that directly contributed to their Smart India Hackathon victory.
The Vice-Chancellor and the Registrar lauded the students and their mentor for the achievement. The initiative was supported by Dr. Narasimha Raju, SIH SPOC, with academic leadership from Dr. Aswin Kumar.
This marks KL Deemed to be University’s second national-level win at the Smart India Hackathon. Earlier, a KL GLUG team won SIH 2022 at the national finale held in Erode, Tamil Nadu, for a solution enabling educational access in rural villages without internet connectivity—an initiative later implemented in multiple villages.
The latest recognition reinforces KL Deemed to be University’s position as an innovation-driven institution, where experiential learning, strong mentorship, and societal relevance converge to deliver future-ready solutions with real-world impact.
