Texas Instruments (TI) has launched the second edition of the India Innovation Challenge Design Contest (IICDC 2017). Registrations for the contest opened on July 20 at www.ti.com/iicdc, and the last date is September 10. TI will continue the collaboration with Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to nurture innovation, consistent with the goals of the Make in India programme. Over the year, IICDC 2017 will include an intense mentoring programme for students.
Last year, the contest attracted registrations from 11,000 engineering students across 624 colleges in India. Anamika Verma, an IIT Mumbai participant, said:“IICDC has raised standards for other design contests in the country. TI, along with its partners, worked with us as a team. I would highly recommend students from engineering colleges to apply for IICDC 2017.”
TI will provide resources and in-depth technical training throughout this year’s contest. DST will provide ₹3.5 crore to student start-ups for prototyping and seed funding. NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore will provide business mentoring and incubation support.
Idea platform
“TI believes in nurturing engineering students through our university programme, especially through experiential learning. We are thankful to all the partners for helping us build IICDC into a thriving platform for young minds to generate ideas and launch their start-ups.” said, Sanjay Srivastava, Director, TI India University Programme.
Prof Suresh Bhagavatula, Chairperson, Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Development, NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) at IIM Bangalore , said: “IIMB sees an exciting opportunity through this collaboration with TI on the IICDC by zeroing in on unique entrepreneurial ideas from the country’s best talent and helping transform them into successful enterprises. With mentors from NSRCEL, we see a lot of growth and competitive opportunity for students who want to address critical problems through their innovations.”
Path-breaking solutions
“DST’s collaboration with TI’s IICDC provides impetus to the development of science and technology within the country. With this, we encourage students to engineer path-breaking solutions that bring socio-economic change.” said HK Mittal, advisor and head of NSTEDB, DST.
Commenting on the partnership, Gaurav Dwivedi, CEO of MyGov, said: “MyGov is glad to support DST and TI India in bringing innovative ideas from different corners of the country to one platform, thus further strengthening government’s Make in India program. The Innovative Platform of MyGov has been developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) that has great engagement and evaluation features to conduct such contests. The platform has hosted number of such innovative contests in recent years.”