Bangalore: Texas Instruments (TI) recently announced the upcoming edition of DST – TI India Innovation Challenge Design Contest (IICDC) which opens for registration from 20 June 2018 till 31 August 2018. A dedicated TI-IICDC registration page was launched on MyGov portal by Dr. Anita Gupta, Advisor and Associate Head, Department of Science and Technology, Professor Suresh Bhagavatula Chairperson, NSRCEL, IIMB and Mr. Sanjay Srivastava, Director, Texas Instruments India University Program at IIM Bangalore.
Students can register their innovative ideas and participate in the contest through this link: https://innovate.mygov.in/india-innovation-challenge-design-contest-2018 . The Ministry of Science and Technology (DST) and Texas Instruments extend support to the qualifying teams with a fund of INR 8.2 crore, which marks a significant increase from INR 4.14 crore as compared to the previous editions. This edition also provides the opportunity for the Indian engineering students to earn 15,000+ certificates across various stages of the contest.
Key Features of the DST-TI IICDC 2018 edition INR 20 Lacs seed funds to top 10 start-ups INR 5 Lacs product development funds to select semi-finalists teams INR 30,000 stipends to select Semi-finalists teams Free TI Tools worth up to INR 70Lacs to participants15000+ certificates spread across the whole contest600+ types of cash prizes spread throughout the contest totalling up to INR 50Lacs Recognition for the Faculty (Mentors) of the Semi-finalists and Finalists teams DST-TI IICDC, which is in its third edition, has undergone a remarkable change to be one amongst the most popular innovation contests for Indian engineering students and colleges.
In the 2017 edition, 15,380 engineering students from 965 colleges participated, a 43% growth versus 2016. The uniqueness of this contest lies in the partnerships and collaborations that TI has built to create a complete innovation ecosystem for the participants.“With the launch of DST-TI IICDC we plugged a stark gap which existed in the ecosystem for Indian engineering students to venture into entrepreneurship with the right support structure. While all teams aim to win, it is the journey of transforming an idea to reality that students value the most. They also acquire immense learning, with rewards along the way, being mentored by leading minds from TI including networking with other student engineers, and winning several cash prizes and certificates. Our attempt is to create an immersive ecosystem for innovation that challenges students every step of the way,” says Sanjay Srivastava, Director, TI India University Program.
IIM Bangalore’s NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) will help incubate the winning teams and support them in the launch of their venture. Professor Suresh Bhagavatula, Chair, NSRCEL at IIMB, said, “The collaboration with TI and DST is an exciting opportunity because we are sure to come across unique entrepreneurial ideas and can help transform these ideas into successful enterprises. At NSRCEL, we are happy to provide mentoring for students who want to address critical problems through their innovations.”
The DST-TI IICDC brings together the best from each partnering organizations. The Ministry of Science and Technology supports the young, aspiring entrepreneurs with funding for their start-ups. MyGov, the government’s online portal reaches out to its five million subscribers for participation. National Informatics Centre provides web infrastructure for submission and evaluation of their start-upsTI spearheads this massive operation of the contest along with providing technical guidance and mentorship, free TI tools worth up to INR 70 Lacs, INR 50 Lacs prizes and 15,000+ certificates to the participants.
Sanjay further added, “In the past editions of the contest, many cutting-edge ideas have come from engineering colleges in Tier II and Tier III cities. This is the magic of IICDC. We’ve unearthed brilliant engineers with high impact, transformative ideas and provided a platform to realise their dreams.”Dr. Harkesh Kumar Mittal, Advisor, Ministry of Science and Technology, said, “With the vision to promote research and development of cutting edge technologies in the country, we are happy to partner with TI which helps in bringing together the best of the talents to a common platform and help them work on leading edge technologies. This will encourage students to engineer innovative solutions that bring socio-economic changes. We were able to see immense potential in IICDC with the increasing number of students registering every year. Our responsibility grows as partners to extend our support with more unique offerings year-on-year.”
Dr. Arvind Gupta, CEO, MyGov, said, “With its enormous ability to bring more than 6 million citizens to partner with Government, MyGov is excited to partner with DST and TI towards bringing new generation of budding engineers to strengthen the innovation index of our country. It will also help MyGov to play a stellar role in developing, supporting and spreading the digital ecosystem of India and enabling the millennials to lead a new dawn of Digital revolution in the country”.
