IIT Madras Students Develops India’s First Blockchain-Based Elections for Student Council Elections

Content Curator | Updated On - May 7, 2024

IIT Madras students conduct India’s first student council election using blockchain technology-based software. This initiative enables students to vote from anywhere in the student council election. Read details here!

New Delhi: IIT Madras has achieved a milestone through its new block-chain-based elections. IIT Madras students conducted India's first-ever student council election using blockchain technology-based software, earning a place in the India Book of Records and potentially disrupting elections. This innovation allows students to vote from anywhere in the student council election.

Importance of Blockchain Technology in Elections

The development of the first blockchain-based student council election started with the vision of the W&BC students at IIT Madras. Unlike traditional methods, blockchain provides a shared, tamper-proof ledger maintained by a network of nodes, ensuring trust and accountability in every transaction.

Blockchain technology, known for its decentralized and immutable nature, has emerged as a game-changer for electoral processes. Its most significant advantage is its ability to ensure the security and integrity of elections. This technology helps to improve the student council election and enables remote election.

Students focused on three aspects: transparency, auditability, and election security, aiming to establish an election infrastructure for remote voting.

Objective of IIT Madras’s Blockchain-Based Election

Students developed the software from the Webops and Blockchain Club (W&BC) at the Centre for Innovation (CFI), IIT Madras. The club's overarching goal is to implement technology for positive social change.

The students aimed to optimize the college's existing technical infrastructure for voting using the blockchain system. Professor Prabhu Rajagopal, Advisor (Innovation and Entrepreneurship), along with Anirudh Varna, a BTech 4th year student, and Vijayaraja R, an MS (Entrepreneurship) 2nd year student, all from IIT Madras, co-founded the in-house startup Plenome, which commercialized this technology.

Both governmental and private organizations utilize Plenome's software to manage land and health records. Initially, an Indian tech firm and the Department of Science and Technology backed the project. They started the project as a CSR initiative to address COVID-19 challenges, especially in accessing medical records and monitoring health conditions across regions.

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