In the latest episode of the Dinis Guarda Podcast, Samkit Sharma, founder of Hack2Skill, talks about the platform’s impact on fostering innovation through over 1,000 AI-Driven Hackathons and also generated 25,000+ ideas, trained more than 75,000 innovators and organised 5,000+ boot camps, and the future of tech-driven community building and AI-driven learning globally. The podcast is powered by Businessabc.net, Citiesabc.com, Wisdomia.ai, and Sportsabc.org.
Samkit Sharma is an entrepreneur, tech innovator, and community leader, specialising in innovation management, product evangelism, and technology-driven community building. He is the founder of Hack2Skill, India’s largest and fastest-growing community that connects over 5 million technology innovators, including startups, professionals, freelancers, and student innovators. Samkit has spoken at global events like Web Summit on SaaS and innovation. He worked with ISRO on the Bharatiya Antariksh Hackathon 2024 to support advancements in space technology.
During the interview with Dinis Guarda, Samkit Sharma discusses the transformative impact of AI and its potential to reshape the future:
“We are more focused on how they can communicate with these AI models, The new generation will not code, even if you ask any IT companies, 60 to 70% of their code is done by any AI model. Our focus is shifting on the communication-first approach, giving us all the capabilities of exploring new things and all.
We worked with SEBI to track the influencers who are misleading stock prices and inflating the value of stock, We were able to track those influencers out in social media.
Hack2Skill: Revolutionising innovation and AI adoption
Samkit introduces Hack2Skill, India’s largest and fastest-growing community, has partnered with over 10,000 institutes, including IITs and NITs, and engaged with more than 10,000 startups. The platform has hosted over 1,000 hackathons, generated 25,000+ ideas, trained more than 75,000 innovators and organised 5,000+ boot camps, working with brands like Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Unilever, and Snap.
“Hack2Skill is an innovation management platform and product evangelism platform. We are catering to two types of organisations and companies. One is the tech companies like Google, Intel, Microsoft, who are ready with their SDK, ready with their product and all with the platform.
We are engaging developers for that, more than 5 million innovators and developers. We are also working very closely with Google on how the AI adoption in India can take place.
It’s a gamified version of experiential learning where a lot of offline or in-person, or I will say online, boot camps we are doing, they can compete, and then they can see how they level up.
They can take part in various hackathons and judge themselves, a complete gamified version of learning where they can not only learn but also evaluate where they are standing in the ecosystem of AI development.
Second is a pure innovation management where we outsource, we like to crowdsource all the good ideas.
For a company, if they want to innovate, what they will do is create a team of 10-12 people, give them 6 months, and provide all the resources. We are closing in just a day or two.
Imagine the 10 best solutions can help them in whatever way they can. There are good examples out there, these are the frugal innovations. These are the tested innovations that will work in the ecosystem.
90% of the cases we have agreement with the client. We can’t share publicly, but a few things which are in the public domain, we are happy to share and talk about more.”
Samkit discusses his vision for shaping the future workforce, reflecting on the challenges faced by young individuals:
“There are a lot of jobs available in the market, the only problem is we are not interacting with the right set of skilled people for the job.
When I started, I never thought that I would create a 10 cr company or a 100 cr company like that. I always start, let’s solve this.
In entrepreneurship, if you are making sense of whatever you are doing and you are doing for at least two to three years, I think things will fall in place. People will know what is happening in the media, but no one wants to go to these new technologies and domains, which is a lack.
Our platform will focus on those opportunities which are domain agnostic, people will learn first, they will have an experience, that experience will give them confidence whether they want to pursue excellence in that particular domain.”
Accelerating innovation and AI-driven learning globally
Samkit discusses the evolution of Hack2Skill and its global reach:
Hack2Skill is more, an AI platform where the action happens, where it is a global platform. It’s working on North America, South America, it’s working on the entire Asia-Pacific region, on the MENA region, and all.
Hack2Skill is more, I will say, prompt to solving those largest challenges which brands are facing. Now with the touch of AI, I will say the innovation acceleration has doubled or twice the kind of capacity it can be. This is how the whole focus of mine is right now on Hack2Skill and making this the world’s largest innovation management platform.”
Samkit explains the importance of experiential learning in AI:
“It’s not about going and going through a video and learning about AI. It’s an experiential learning experience when it comes to AI and agentic AI.
There are a lot of things happening in AI, and you should know what kind of particular domain you should expertise yourself.
Any company that wants to innovate, any company that wants to engage with the developer, engage with the innovators, they want to solve their real problems, this is the platform for them. They launch their problem, they just launch their domain like this is the thing we want to work on, this is the thing which we want to do.”
If the user tells what to make and how to make, it’s a grand correlation and connection with all these brands and the users. This is a message to all the brands out there, all the companies, and the large organisations out there: if you want to scale or innovate faster, Hack2Skill is the platform for you.”
Shikha Negi is a Content Writer at ztudium with expertise in writing and proofreading content. Having created more than 500 articles encompassing a diverse range of educational topics, from breaking news to in-depth analysis and long-form content, Shikha has a deep understanding of emerging trends in business, technology (including AI, blockchain, and the metaverse), and societal shifts, As the author at Sarvgyan News, Shikha has demonstrated expertise in crafting engaging and informative content tailored for various audiences, including students, educators, and professionals.
