Ericsson has announced the launch of the Ericsson Innovation Awards India 2016 in association with Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT). Students from fourteen premier engineering institutes are being invited to submit their innovation projects by Ericsson India with the objective of supporting and helping incubate the best student ideas.
The awards seek student innovations in the following areas: web design, cloud computing, storage and networking, human-machine interface, embedded and hardware system design, MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output), machine-to-machine/Internet of Things (IoT), software-defined networking, open source, signal processing, graphics and visualisation, as well as research.
Ericsson has invited project proposals from institutes including IITs across Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, Roorkee, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Mandi, Hyderabad as well as IISc Bangalore, BITS Pilani, IIIT Gwalior, IIIT Delhi, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi.
Following the preliminary screening at their respective institutes, the student proposals from all the participating institutes will go through a shortlisting process. Around 10 to 12 student proposals will be shortlisted and financially supported for developing the proof of concept/initial prototype for their projects.
They will be given a two month period (Feb-April 2016) for developing the same. The final winner selection will be on the basis of the proof of concept/initial prototypes developed by the students, and on criteria such as degree of innovation, feasibility, usability, relevance, time to market and the overall impact/benefit to industry. The jury will comprise of senior members from Ericsson, FITT and eminent industry experts. The awards will be presented by them at a mega event at IIT Delhi in May
“The awards aim to encourage and promote the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship amongst students. By expanding the scale of these awards from seven institutes in 2015 to fourteen engineering institutes this year, we want to reach out to more students and give them a platform to become successful entrepreneurs,” said Paolo Colella, Head of Region India at Ericsson, during the launch.
Last year's winner of the awards – Paras, for the smart jewelry/app called ‘Safer’, has recently recieved funding of $250,000.
"By helping students incubate their projects at IIT approved technology business incubators, we are not only encouraging students to come forward with their innovation ideas but are also helping them translate those ideas into viable businesses,” said Anil Wali, Managing Director, FITT.