Hyderabad, March 21: Microsoft India on Monday inaugurated "Microsoft Openness Days", the first ever open source conference of its kind for developers in India.

The conference is aimed at helping 1,000 architects, developers and cloud professionals discover and leverage the company's Microsoft Azure cloud platform for government and enterprise solutions, a company statement said. 

The conference includes "Open Hack", India's first open source on Azure hackathon organised by Microsoft with support from the Telangana government. 

The six-hour long hackathon will offer developers the opportunity to work on and showcase innovative applications (apps) and solution ideas based on the themes of the state government's digital initiatives.

"We are a firm supporter of technology to drive Telangana's growth and development. We are very pleased to partner with Microsoft to host the Open Hack in our state," said Jayesh Ranjan, secretary - information technology, electronics and communications department, Telangana government. 

"We are confident that the immense talent of our developer pool, combined with Microsoft's technologies and expertise, can help achieve our digital goals and in turn, the welfare of our citizens," he added.

Narendra Bhandari, general manager - developer experience and evangelism, Microsoft India, thanked the Telangana government for their continued support. 

"It is energising to see young talent develop technical solutions which will help us transform into digital India," Bhandari said. 

The top six apps and the teams will be selected by Microsoft and T-Hub for further development, mentoring and to build market readiness. 

The winners will also get exciting devices and other prizes.