Bengaluru: Tech Giant IBM and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad announced the first-of-its kind Cognitive Tech based Challenge – Cognitive Entrepreneurship Challenge (CEC). The Challenge will reach out to students and start-ups across India. Registrations has already started since 05 September 2016 with various rounds and the finale is expected to happen towards mid-November 2016. The deadline for submission of form for the Cognitive Challenge is 15 October 2016.
Cognitive Entrepreneurship Challenge (CEC) is an IBM led initiative wherein students and start-ups will be trained via interactive workshops on Cloud based API on Bluemix. CEC is part of “Masterplan 2016” – which is an annual competition held within IIM Ahmedabad where students and startups build business solutions and win exciting prizes. The Cognitive track will be an integral part of Masterplan 2016. Masterplan 2016 organised by students of IIM Ahmedabad is the annual business plan competition that seeks to identify budding entrepreneurs to contribute to the nation’s economy.
The Grand Finale will be held on the campus of IIM Ahmedabad between 25th November and 27th November, 2016 during Confluence 2016. The contest is open to students, corporate professionals, entrepreneurs, as well as other independent individuals (employed or unemployed). The participants will be evaluated and mentored by the IBM India Watson team. Students across all engineering and management disciplines will be invited to take part in this event.
The main aim of CEC is to encourage young entrepreneurs and the student community to build business solutions around capabilities using IBM’s Cloud platform – Bluemix. Bluemix is a platform as a Service (PaaS) offering from IBM based on open standards and cloud to build, deploy, manage and run omni-channel applications like web and mobile, big data and other smart services. Other than the IBM Bluemix platform, students will also have access to other relevant IBM technology platforms in the areas of Analytics and Security.
Prof Anish Sugathan, faculty of Business Policy, and the Masterplan faculty advisor at IIM Ahmedabad, said “Cognitive computing is fast augmenting human knowledge, capabilities and experience. Recent applications of this technology in data analytics, financial services, medical diagnostics and public service delivery shows potential to generate tremendous societal and enterprise value.”
Specifically, in the case of rapidly digitizing Indian economy, there is vast untapped potential for creative applications of cognitive technologies by enterprises, entrepreneurs and changemakers, added he.
“IIM Ahmedabad Masterplan 2016 is excited to partner with IBM, which brings IBM’s legendary Watson technology — that beat humans on the game of Jeopardy — to the vast pool of CEC participants and startups to help them create cutting-edge solutions.” said Prof. Anish Sugathan.
Commenting on the innovative contest, Dr. Prashant Pradhan, Watson India Lead, IBM India / South Asia said “We are pleased to partner with IIM Ahmedabad on the first-ever Cognitive Entrepreneur Challenge in India. In the cognitive era, we see various ecosystem constituents coming together to co-create game changing applications to solve real world challenges. IBM is committed to creating this innovation ecosystem by opening up Watson APIs to the world.”
Dr Pradhan also commented that India as a region has tremendous potential for applying Cognitive at scale, and Indian entrepreneurs have shown tremendous creativity and passion in applying technology to create value. “So we really see this as the start of an exciting partnership, and a testimony to our commitment to make India Digital,” reiterated Dr Pradhan.
For registration and more details on the Cognitive Entrepreneurship Challenge and IIM Ahmedabad’s Masterplan 2016, interested candidates should visit the official page of Masterplan 2016:
http://iima-masterplan.in/#close
