Policy Hackathon by Institute of Public Policy NLSIU Bangalore: Register by Mar 31!

Densification Vs Congestion Challenges in Hill State Towns
(Policy Hackathon for under graduate students)

Institute of Public Policy, National Law School of India University, Bangalore in collaboration with Policy Innovation Lab and The Foundation for Inclusive and Sustainable Habitats (FISH) invites students to participate in the competition to design innovative policy solutions to deal with densification in hill state towns.

The Challenge

Densification is character of urbanization. However, densification in hill state towns and other ecological zones poses significant challenge to both human society and eco-systems that these societies depend on. It is here, a distinction of densification and congestion becomes useful. Design a policy solution that aims to address / mitigate congestion in these special zones. Your solution should be concretely focused on one of the towns, but should have implication for any hill state town. We expect solutions specifically dealing with concrete challenges such as Market spaces, Housing and Habitats, Informal settlements etc.

The Competition

Competition has two stages. In the first stage, a written submission (not more than 4000 words including diagram, table, references etc) is required. In the second stage seven submissions will be shortlisted for interaction with jury based on written submission. Top three teams will be selected based on the submission and interaction.

Facilitation for Undergraduates

Upon receipt of expression of interest (before 31st of March 2022) organisers will organize few zoom meetings to help competitors to demystify the Challenge. These sessions will help undergraduates to approach the Challenge and how to gather information to effectively participate in the competition. However, attending these sessions are not mandatory to participate in the competition.

Evaluation Criteria

1) Innovation
2) Scalability of solutions
3) Ability to articulate ideas on the basis of evidence
4) Interdisciplinarity

Dates

Expression of Interest by email: 31 March 2022 (use the format at the bottom of this document)
Written Submission: 30 April 2022
Presentation to the Jury by shortlisted entries: 28 May 2022 (through Zoom)
Send your entry to: upcompetition@nls.ac.in

Guidelines for written submission

a) A title of less than 30 word.
b) A summary of 300 words summarizing your arguments.
c) Keep a title page where you include a) title of the entry; b) and names of authors and their affiliating educational institution, including contact details of email and phone numbers.
d) Include an introduction/background (around 750 words).
e) A section of methods/process on how you developed the paper: what evidence is used, if you discussed this with experts, their affiliations or contexts/reason for such interaction (less than 500 words).
f) Main body of your paper clearly demarcating sub-sections using sub headings (about 2000 words).
g) Conclusion (less than 500 words).
h) List of references you may have used.

Prizes

The Foundation for Inclusive and Sustainable Habitats (FISH) will award:
Prize money of Rs.15,000 to the first winning team/individual
Prize money of Rs. 10,000 for second winning team/individual
Prize money of Rs.5,000 for third winning team/individual
All teams/individuals shall get a participation certificate.

Rules

1) Any student registered for an under-graduate (BA, B.Sc., B.Com., B. Plan and B. Arch B.Tech, etc) in following regions are eligible: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura & Uttarakhand. Students from these regions studying in other states are not eligible. A bona fide letter from principal/Head of the department / registrar of the college where student is registered is required to enter into competition.
2) Post-graduate students are not eligible to participate.
3) Both individual submission and group submissions are eligible. Students may form a team of maximum up to three students. Each member of the team have to meet the criteria of rule number 1.
4) One student / team could submit only one entry.
5) Plagiarism norms are applied. Submissions with plagiarized content shall be ineligible.
6) Final authority for settling any disputes arising out of competition shall be the jury of eminent scholars appointed by organisers.
7) You may address any of the queries on competition to: upcompetition@nls.ac.in

Format for Express of Interest (before 31 March 2022)

Send an email to upcompetition@nls.ac.in stating name and affiliation of at least one participant in the competition.
Following this, we will contact you through email for an orientation session.

Check list for submission of final entry to competition

Send following documents to upcompetition@nls.ac.in before 30 April 2022

1) Document of entry with title as separate page, and document not to exceed 4000 words.
2) For each student participating in the competition, bona fide certificate from the institution of study clearly stating a) the programme of study, b) year of study, c) name of institution, d) phone number of institution, e) name and designation of the person signing the letter. A specimen for the letter is given below (if participants are from different colleges, separate letters from each institution is required):

Specimen
This is to certify that Mr/Ms. …(name of student/s)……is a bonafide student of our college…..(name of college/institute/university)…..studying in the programme…….(e.g. B.A. Economics)….in the……..(first/second/third/fourth) year of the programme.
This letter is provided for the purpose of above student participating in the Policy Hackathon competition organized by the Institute of Public Policy (NLSIU), Bangalore.
If you require any further clarification, you may contact me at….(email / phone number to be provided. If the letter is given on letterhead of the institution, it is not required).

(Signature)
Name
Designation

Join Kanooniyat’s WhatsApp group to get notified immediately. Also, check us out on Instagram and LinkedIn