Pune:   KPIT, a global leader in automotive software and mobility solutions, has announced the winners of KPIT Sparkle 2020. KPIT Sparkle is an innovation platform that nurtures, mentors and supports aspiring entrepreneurs and connects them with incubators in the ecosystem to transform their inventive ideas into viable products.

KPIT Sparkle, an annual national-level contest, cultivates a culture of innovation by inspiring students from the STEM (science, technology, engineering, management) streams to identify and solve real-life problems in sustainability by designing new technology-enabled solutions. It also encourages and facilitates students to secure intellectual property for their solutions.

This year, KPIT Sparkle featured two competitions:

• i Innovate, a design and development challenge, which received more than 3000 ideas from over 20,000 students across more than 1000 colleges in India. It provided students of undergraduate, post-graduate and PhD courses from science, engineering, design and management colleges and universities across India with an opportunity to develop smart, safe and clean solutions for the energy and transportation sectors.

The Top 30 teams presented working prototypes of their solutions at the grand finale held at the Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering (PCCOE) on 1 March 2020.

• i can crack IT challenge, which invited students and faculty members from science, engineering, design and management colleges, and universities to solve industrial problems provided by a team of technical experts from KPIT.

Padma Vibhushan Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Rajiv Gandhi Science and Technology Commission and former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission), was the guest of honor. 

Dr. Unnat Pandit, Program Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog and Dr. Anita Gupta, Adviser & Associate Head (Innovation & Entrepreneurship), Department of Science & Technology (DST) were special guests at the event.

Ravi Pandit, Chairman, KPIT Technologies, said, “The mobility ecosystem is evolving, and it needs skilled talent to be able to cater to consumer demands. With our strong reputation as a technology disrupter for the automotive industry, KPIT is strongly positioned to contribute as creator of new-age talent in the mobility ecosystem. KPIT Sparkle facilitates the academia and the industry to join forces and promote innovation with solutions led by new talent.” He added, “KPIT Sparkle is setting new benchmarks in innovation every year. The projects help make cities smarter with clean, green and intelligent technologies in energy and mobility.”

i Innovate winners 

Team Detox from the Army Institute of Technology, Pune won the gold award of Rs. 5,00,000 for designing a modified vertical axis wind turbine, inspired by an airplane nose design, that increases the efficiency in extracting energy from the turbine.

The system has six nose structures, each separated by cavities to let the channelised air through from one side to the other, resulting in a reduction of opposite drag force to give a net efficiency of 22.3%.

It has applications in both commercial and industrial sectors.

• Two teams won the silver awards of Rs. 2,50,000 each.

o   Team Vortex from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, for designing a novel technology to harvest renewable energy from hydrokinetic energy by taming vortex-induced vibrations, which are otherwise traditionally considered as destructive.

o   Team ZincAir from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru for designing a bi-functional material for making the eco-friendly rechargeable zinc-air battery for electric vehicles more efficient.

• Team Bio from St. Xavier’s Catholic College of Engineering, Kanyakumari won the Most Popular Award for designing a photobioreactor to enhance biomass productivity from microalgae growth by producing bio-hydrogen through the dark fermentation method, which is environmentally friendly and cost-effective.

i can crack IT winners

The winners include the following, who won Rs 50,000 each.

• Himanshu Sharma, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Goa
• Anup Kanare, Vidya Prasarni Sabha’s College of Engineering & Technology, Pune
• Prajakta Pokharnikar, Akhilesh Magdum, Prof. Madhura Raste, Annasaheb Dange College of Engineering & Technology, Sangli
• Shreyas Thombare and Prof. Sanjay Mohite, D.Y Patil Institute of Engineering & Technology, Pune

Incubation opportunities

KPIT partnered with the Centre for Innovation Incubation & Entrepreneurship (CIIE), IIM Ahmedabad; Incubation Cell, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai; Science and Technology Park, University of Pune; Bhau Institute of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership, College of Engineering Pune; Aartech (AIC), one of the first corporate Atal Incubation Centres established under the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM); Sandip Incubators (AIC); and Forge to provide incubation opportunities to deserving ideas.

Knowledge partners

KPIT Sparkle 2020 was privileged to be associated with the Government of India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST); NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM); All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE); India Design Council; National Institute of Design; and ONGC Energy Centre as its knowledge partners.

The Jury

The finalists were evaluated by a jury comprising national and international experts from the academic, business, automotive and technology fields, including; Dr. Peter F. Tropschuh, Vice President, Strategy Sustainability, AUDI AG; Dr. Carl Perrin, Director, Institute for Future Transport & Cities, Coventry University; Dr. Ashish Lele, Senior VP, Reliance Industries Ltd., Research & Development Group; Dr. Milind Rane, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay; Dr. Siddhartha Mukhopadhyay, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur; Dr. B. Gurumoorthy, Professor, Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing , IISc Bangalore; Dr. Sanjiv Katti, Director General, ONGC Energy Center; Mr. Ravikumar Samuthiram, General Manager, Product Engineering, Daimler India; Mr. Rafi Maor, Director, Mellanox Technologies TLV Ltd.; Mr. Kamlesh Pande, Founder of MAITRI (Making Academia Innovative and Technically Relevant to Industry); Mr. Kedar Kanase, Head, Advanced Engineering & CAE, Greaves Cotton Ltd.; Mr. Balakrishna Mahajan, CEO, Ticket Design; Dr. S. S. Lakade, Dean R&I, PCCOE – Pimpri Chinchwad College Of Engineering; Dr. S. U. Bhandari, Dean SDW, PCCOE; Mr. Anup Sable, CTO, KPIT Technologies Ltd.

The winners were selected on parameters such as the novelty of the idea, completeness of the prototype, technical knowledge and the social impact of the solution.