{"345121":{"#nid":"345121","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Tech Students Win Global Hackathon","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA group of students from Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, and Emory University won a global hackathon last month for creating a device that would help farmers in developing countries.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETeam Revolutionary Agricultural Technologies (RAT) won the Pakathon Atlanta Competition\u0026nbsp;on Sept. 28 and moved on to win the Pakathon Global Competition in Boston on Oct. 11.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAneeq Zia and Muneeb Zia, Tech graduate students in electrical and computer engineering, worked with their teammates, who included startup entrepreneurs, to design the Tensiometer, a device to monitor soil water status in the root zone of a crop. The Tensiometer can help low-income, low-technology farmers know when and how much to irrigate certain crops, which in return should provide better crop yield and water-use efficiency.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWith future populations increasing and fresh water supplies decreasing, this device is in development to help solve the issue of over-watering crops, thus saving more water for human consumption and food growth,\u201d said Zia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMuhammad Asif Rana, head of the Pakathon Atlanta Chapter, believes Team RAT\u2019s dedication to making a physical device, rather than an app, was what made them stand out among the competition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI think the main reason our winning team won the global competition was that they proposed an engineering solution,\u201d he said. \u201cThey provided an actual hardware prototype which was pretty novel. The other ideas were mostly apps.\u201d \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPakathon Atlanta is one of several chapters that participate in Pakathon, a two-round global hackathon that takes place synchronously in 16 cities in the U.S., Pakistan, and Canada.\u0026nbsp;The first round determines city winners, who then move onto the global finale.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe goal of Pakathon is to provide developing countries, specifically Pakistan, with sustainable projects and companies and to connect entrepreneurs from around the world to Pakistan. From Pakistan, Pakathon hopes to eventually move on to developing countries all over the world.\u003C\/p\u003E\u0026nbsp;","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech students won Pakathon global hackathon in October.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech students won Pakathon global hackathon in October."}],"uid":"28128","created_gmt":"2014-11-13 11:46:58","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:30","author":"Nihit Tiwari","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-13T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-13T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"345131":{"id":"345131","type":"image","title":"Pakathon Team RAT","body":null,"created":"1449245654","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:14","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"Pakathon Team RAT","file":{"fid":"201936","name":"teamrat.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/teamrat_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/teamrat_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":80529,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/teamrat_0.jpg?itok=8K3oXE4b"}},"345141":{"id":"345141","type":"image","title":"Pakathon Atlanta","body":null,"created":"1449245654","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:14","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"Pakathon Atlanta","file":{"fid":"201937","name":"pakathon_atlanta.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/pakathon_atlanta_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/pakathon_atlanta_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":213935,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/pakathon_atlanta_0.jpg?itok=ua8l2oHx"}}},"media_ids":["345131","345141"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PakathonBoston","title":"Facebook"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.pakathon.org\/","title":"Website"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2029","name":"Competition"},{"id":"289","name":"Global"},{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"},{"id":"61371","name":"Hackathon"},{"id":"166847","name":"students"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:stucomm@gatech.edu\u0022\u003ENihit Tiwari\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003EInsitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["stucomm@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}