MUMBAI: Stepping up efforts to improve India's television audience measurement and ratings system, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) last week invited sealed limited tenders for organising a Hackathon. Hackerearth, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Persistent Systems Ltd and Mettl were the four companies listed in the sector regulator's limited tender.

TRAI said it intends to engage a reputed agency for the purpose of conducting a hackathon “to find out the possible solutions” for TV audience measurement and ratings in India, the mandate for which currently rests with BARC India.

The eligible bidders shall conduct the hackathon on behalf of TRAI, covering all the technical, management, logistics and marketing aspects of it. The event will be conducted in two phases: online and offline.

The online phase will be open for participants across India for submitting idea/synopsis based on the TRAI's objective. The shortlisted candidates will be invited to participate in phase-II, which will be offline. In this phase participants will build on their ideas in a 36-hour Hackathon in Bengaluru and present their final solutions.

While the tender was floated on 9 August, the last date for receipt of the order is 16 August. As per the regulator’s instructions, the successful bidder shall complete the Hackathon within a period of 45 days from the date of award of work.

The role of hire /selected agency in the Hackathon would be as follows:

· Organise and execute the hackathon

· Assisting TRAI in defining problem statement

· Provide platform for hackathon

· Develop hackathon webpage for registration and submission of ideas

· Arrangements for publicity of hackathon through different mediums including social media

· Identification, coordination and inviting participants/teams for hackathon

· Evaluate the ideas submitted in phase-I

· Invite and co-ordinate all participants/teams shortlisted in phase-I for

· Participating in phase-Il

· Organise the on-ground logistics for Phase-Il

· Identify jury members from the industry

· Assist TRAI in evaluating and judging the final solutions to the problem statement in phase-Il.

In December 2018, TRAI issued a consultation paper on "Review of Television Audience Measurement and Ratings in India" seeking comments from the stakeholders.

In addition to that, Open House Discussions (OHDs) on the consultation paper were conducted in New Delhi and Mumbai.

Stakeholders in their written comments and during OHDs highlighted issues related to the development of technological solutions for TV audience measurement without manual intervention.