Ericsson announces Innovation Awards for IIT students

BANGALORE, INDIA: Ericsson announced the launch of the Ericsson Innovation Awards in association with the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT) to recognize the spirit of innovation among students at Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). With these awards, Ericsson aims to facilitate innovative projects from these engineering students and support some deserving ventures all the way through to their incubation phase at IIT-approved technology business incubators.

The Ericsson Innovation Awards seek student innovations in areas such as 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, software-defined networking, open source, signal processing, graphics and visualization, as well as research. Ericsson has invited project proposals in these areas from IIT students across Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, Roorkee and Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi.

Following the preliminary screening phase at their respective IITs, the student proposals will be shortlisted through two jury sessions, comprising senior members from Ericsson R&D, FITT and industry experts. In the first round, the jury will shortlist up to 10 proposals on criteria such as degree of innovation, feasibility, usability, relevance, time to market and the overall impact on masses. Each shortlisted proposal will be given an incentive by Ericsson to complete the initial prototype within three months.

In the second round, the jury will select up to two innovation projects. These will be announced in a ceremony in April 2015 and will be supported for project incubation by Ericsson.

At the launch of the awards, Chris Houghton, Head of Region India at Ericsson, said: “By instituting the Ericsson Innovation Awards, we’re seeking to encourage the culture of innovation within the IITs and to support these talented young minds to develop more innovative and relevant solutions for the benefit of industry. As a company that takes pride in its culture of innovation, we’re looking to promote innovation in India through this partnership and other programs that we plan to organize in India.”

Anil Wali, Managing Director, FITT, said: “The Ericsson Innovation Awards is a great initiative that encourages students to push their boundaries and come up with innovative solutions. The awards will enable our students to gain practical knowledge of the industry, while recognizing their creativity and providing them with necessary support to incubate their projects.”