KYN (Know Your Neighbourhood), a leading neighbourhood discovery and connectivity app, hosted KYNNOVATE 2025 in partnership with Ministry of Information Technology and Digital Services Department of Tamil Nadu and ICT Academy, a not-for-profit society training centre which works under Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model, at UMAGINE TN 2025.
UMAGINE TN 2025 is Tamil Nadu’s premier tech event for entrepreneurs, students and industry professionals and this is a first-of-its-kind event by the IT ministry with student engagement of this magnitude.
KYNNOVATE – 2025, a high-impact hackathon, was designed for students to foster innovation, collaboration, and creative problem-solving. It gave students the opportunity to solve real world problems through technology. A total of 1100+ students had registered from 50+ colleges from engineering, arts and science colleges in the city registered. 25 teams were shortlisted and called for interview based on their submissions. Then 5 winners made it to the top 5.
At the event, Mr. Naveen Chandra, Dr. Viveka Kalidasan, PhD, Mr. Ravanan N and moderator Eash Sundaram were also part of the panel discussion which was attended by the students. The session focused on how cities, suburbs and satellite towns can be powerful engines of growth, with technology playing a pivotal role in enabling micro-market economies.
Naveena Thamizhar from RMK Engineering college emerged the winner and won the cash prize of Rs 1 lakh. Team YouthTech from RMK Engineering College won the second prize. This project which is an innovative social media platform that combines core social networking features with advanced analytics and a reward system got the team members a cash prize of Rs 50,000.
Team TechYeezus from Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering, Sriperumbudur, worked on user behaviour analysis and created a platform that identified and analysed distinct community groups within a user base by leveraging user interaction patterns and interests, and this team won the third prize with a cash award of Rs 25,000. Sentiment Analysis project and Content moderation track projects made by Teams Watt_Warriors and Phoenix respectively from Chennai Institute of Technology won special mentions at the hackathon. The two teams from Chennai Institute of Technology were given a cash prize of Rs 10,000 each along with internship opportunity. All the winners will be given internship assistance.
Speaking at the event Dr Palanivel Thiagarajan, Minister of Information Technology and Digital services of Tamil Nadu said that the ministry will plan similar student engagement initiatives, state-wide hackathons next year. He congratulated the students and appreciated the kind of new thinking that they have brought in. He pointed out the need to identify and provide the right platform for students to think out of the box. He also added that, in addition to the prize money, these students will be given internship opportunities across various tech spaces.
On the event, Gayathri Thyagarajan, CEO, Kynhood Technologies and Founder of KYN, said, “KYN believes in strengthening communities and providing opportunities for everyone to showcase their talents. We wish to encourage young minds to tackle real-world challenges through rapid ideation and coding, and KYNNOVATE 2025 is all about that. The event pushed the boundaries of technology while offering participants the chance to showcase their skills, network with industry leaders, create cutting-edge solutions and win cash prizes & internship opportunities. We are happy to be part of UMAGINE TN 2025 – A landmark event in the tech space. The jury consisting of product, engineering and tech experts selected the top 25 among the participants. All the participants did a great job and best wishes to all of them.”