A 24-hour technology competition began on September 23 at the Central Institute of Classical Tamil in Chennai, with the aim of bringing together the Tamil language and modern technology.

Students from colleges across South India are taking part. The competition received more than a thousand registrations, from which 60 teams were selected for the final round.

Students will develop innovations across six technology categories, including digitizing Tamil books and palm-leaf manuscripts, building websites for learning Tamil, and using artificial intelligence to access information in Tamil.

The main aim of the event is to develop practical technologies for learning, researching and digitally preserving the Tamil language.

Such technological efforts create new opportunities to expand the use of Tamil on modern digital platforms.