KL University students have brought national recognition to the institution by winning the Smart India Hackathon (SIH 2025), securing a cash prize of ₹1.5 lakh at the national level. The grand finale was held at Chandigarh Engineering College, Landran, Punjab, where the KLU team emerged on top after competing against more than 500 teams from across the country.
The winning solution addressed the problem statement “Low Cost Automated Classroom Attendance for Rural Areas,” proposed by the Government of Punjab. Designed with affordability and scalability in mind, the solution uses a hybrid RFID and face-recognition system to significantly reduce classroom attendance time and improve teaching efficiency, especially in rural settings.
The team, representing the KL GNU Linux Users Group (KL GLUG), included B.Tech students P. Vamsi Krishna, Varun Sharma, V. Jashwanth, Madhuhan Shekhar, Ankita Behera, and Prabhsirat Kaur from the IRD department. They were mentored by Dr. Sripath Roy Koganti. In total, six teams from KL University qualified for the SIH 2025 national finals, with participation from both the Vijayawada and Hyderabad campuses.
Beyond attendance automation, the award-winning system enables data-driven Mid-Day Meal planning, offers role-based mobile apps and dashboards, sends SMS alerts to parents, and is designed for easy adoption at scale by government bodies. Its real-world relevance and practical design played a key role in the team’s success at the national stage.
The students’ journey reflects the university’s strong emphasis on experiential learning. Earlier, the same team had developed “KL EATS,” a pre-order food solution for university canteens that saw wide student adoption. Supported by KL GLUG and the Department of Experiential Learning, this hands-on development experience sharpened the team’s problem-solving skills, design thinking, and execution capabilities.
The Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor and the Registrar congratulated the students and their mentor for the achievement. The initiative received support from Dr. Narasimha Raju, SIH SPOC, along with academic leadership from Dr. Aswin Kumar.
This marks KL University’s second national-level Smart India Hackathon win. In 2022, a KL GLUG team won SIH for a solution focused on delivering educational access to rural villages without internet connectivity, which was later implemented in multiple locations.
Such consistent national recognition reinforces the university’s position among the top universities in South India, where strong mentorship, innovation-led learning, and real-world problem solving come together to create solutions with meaningful social impact.