Cloud 20/20 has been driving innovation, bringing ideas to life and bridging the gap between academia and IT professionals for over a decade
New Targeted Innovation Program (TIP) challenges students to design solutions to solve actual client business problems
Unisys Corporation today announced the winners of the 11th annual Unisys Cloud 20/20™ contest, one of India’s largest and most popular annual student innovation programs. The contest received more than 3,250 submissions from 130 colleges all over India.
The project titled “Universal Interpreter” was picked as the winner. The project involved students from University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering who had submitted their solution to help differently-abled people navigate a world dominated by visual and audio peripherals using image recognition, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The team from MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology was awarded second place for their project titled “Action Bot,” which was capable of addressing all general support requests from travelers at an airport using a contextual AI chatbot powered by ML. The team from Sri Manakula Vinayagar Engineering College was awarded third place. The team utilized real-time social media analytics to provide actionable insights that airports could use to improve their services.
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The participants went through three rounds of scrutiny by internal judges before they reached the last round, where they were further evaluated by an eminent jury comprised of Saloni Chirania – Analytics Centre of Excellence Lead at Bangalore International Airport Ltd., Priya Madhavan – Consultant at NASSCOM Future Skills, Debojyoti Das, Sachin Punyani and Ashish Subodh Mital – Solution Architects at Amazon Internet Services Pvt. Ltd., Bharanidharan Ravishankar – Senior Director Application Services, Unisys India, Ruma Mukherjee – Lead Architect for Emerging Technologies, Unisys India, Debashish Mishra – Principal Engineer Application Products Development, Unisys India and Dheeraj Sharma – Principal Engineer ClearPath® MCP, Unisys India Technology Center.
Winning teams were awarded cash prizes up to INR 4.25 lakhs. Select winners also received internship offers and full-time employment opportunities with Unisys. Established in 2009 as a technical paper submission contest, the platform has now evolved into a business-facing contest, with an all new segment known as the Targeted Innovation Program (TIP), added this year. The TIP challenge required participants to find innovative solutions to real-life business problems posed by Unisys’ clients, using emerging technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), AI and ML.
“From day one, the vision of Cloud 20/20 has been to foster innovative thinking among the youth of today and help familiarize them with emerging technologies. There is an abundance of talent throughout the country. Through this contest, Unisys aims to bring the best technical minds together, hone their skills and make them industry ready. It is exciting to see young creative minds at work and to witness their enthusiasm and fresh approaches towards solving real world problems,” said Vishal Gupta, chief technology officer and senior vice president, Products and Platforms, Unisys.
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The TIP challenge has been able to provide contestants with hands-on experience on leading-edge technologies and their real-world applications. The new segment is in addition to the existing Student Innovation Program (SIP), where students use emerging technologies to come up with original and creative solutions to address business or societal problems, working closely with industry leaders, who provide them necessary guidance. Project teams from both SIP and TIP streams came together this year to compete for the top three prizes in the contest.
Sumed Marwaha, managing director, Unisys India and regional vice president, Services, Unisys added, “Over the past decade, Cloud 20/20 has been a platform for thousands of students to bring their innovative ideas to life. This year, we sourced problem statements from our clients which made it more challenging, interesting, and most importantly, relevant for the participants and business alike. The involvement of our partners and industry bodies ensured that we provide the students a holistic perspective of the tech innovation space. It is practical experience like this that will best prepare them for future careers. India has always been known for having a wealth of IT talent and Cloud 20/20 ensures that we are encouraging young people to keep pace with new technologies and understand their applications, thus bridging the gap between demand and supply of quality talent.”
Launched in 2009, Cloud 20/20 is one of India’s most popular technical contests for engineering students. Apart from giving students a platform to innovate and interact with industry experts, the forum is a continuous effort to bring together the tech innovation fraternity under one roof. Through the Cloud 20/20 contest, Unisys has identified the best of the best in emerging talent and made 21 offers for full time employment and 38 internship offers since 2016.
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