24 Hours Toyota Hackathon – A Road Safety Initiative Aimed to Instil ‘Road Safety Sense’ and Promote ‘Positive Behavioural Change in the Youths and the Community’

Chennai, 4th February 2024: Reinforcing the road safety and coinciding with the ‘Road Safety Month (18th Jan – 17th Feb 2024), Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) today announced the successful culmination of 24 hours Toyota Hackathon, held at the RV Institute of Technology and Management, Bangalore. The stage event of the 24 Hours-Hackathon was presided by the Chief Guests – Shri. H C Balakrishna, MLA Magadi & Chairman – Karnataka Road Development Limited, Government of Karnataka, Shri. Sharath Bache Gowda, Chairman – Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (KEONICS), Government of Karnataka, Guest of Honour – Shri. J. Purushotham, Additional Commissioner for Transport & Director – Road Safety Cell, Transport Department, Government of Karnataka, Special Invitee – Mr Brijesh Agarwal, Vice President- Operations at Consero Global & Assistant Chief Traffic Warden, along with TKM’s Senior Executive – Mr. Sudeep S. Dalvi, Chief Communication Officer & Senior Vice President and Director, and other key dignitaries.

Education and Road Safety is one of the key pillars of TKM’s core CSR. Through this initiative, TKM focuses to drive the inventive minds of the students (class 9th to 12th standard) from across various private and government schools as well as colleges based in Bangalore. The Toyota Hackathon provided a dynamic platform, divided into three engaging phases, where students showcased their creativity, innovation, and prototype development of practical digital solutions aimed to promote road safety. Further, this program underscores the strong efforts of the company’s contribution to the vision of ‘Zero Road Fatalities’ through ingenuity of young minds, by empowering future generations to develop actionable road safety solutions.

India with its vast population and diverse road networks, experiences a high number of road accidents annually. The report for calendar year 2022* reveals that the number of road accidents, the number of persons killed, and the number of injuries has increased compared to previous years by 11.9%, 9.4% and 15.3% respectively. Further, young adults in the age group of 18 – 45 years accounted for 66.5 per cent of the fatal road accident victims during 2022.