A three-member team from New Town’s University of Engineering & Management (UEM) has emerged as one of the winners of a global hackathon and received their trophy from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Sayak Dhar, Saswata Das, Debanjit Sarkar, all third and second year computer science (B Tech) students at the university, had taken part in the contest conducted by a cyber security awareness group, Cyber Peace Foundation. 
The contest was open to teams across the globe and required them to pick a problem among those mentioned by the organisers and come up with software solutions. 

“We chose ‘women’s security online’,” said Sayak. The team designed a web application which, if activated, would detect any online trolls directed towards women and report to the authorities. 

They cleared the first round of presentations in IIT Patna and went for the finals to Delhi in November. “Five international and 10 Indian teams had been selected and we emerged as one of the toppers,” said Sayak, who said it was yet another boost to be handed the trophy by the Prime Minister. “We didn’t really get to speak to him but he told us ‘badhai ho’ on stage.”

The boys have also been promised some prize money. “But we haven’t thought about whether we want to go ahead and actually build the winning project,” said Sayak.