Texas Instruments 'India Innovation Challenge 2017' to nurture engineering innovation among university students in India

Texas Instruments (TI) today announced the launch of the second edition of India Innovation Challenge Design Contest (IICDC2017), with registrations for the contest opening on July 20th, 2017at www.ti.com/iicdc. The last date for registration is September 10, 2017.

TI will continue the collaboration with the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) to nurture innovation and consistent with the goals of the Make in India program. In the year long journey, IICDC 2017 will include an intense mentoring program for students.

Last year, IICDC 2016 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."

During IICDC 2017, TI will provide resources and in-depth technical training program throughout the contest. DST will provide Rs. 3.5 crores to the student start-ups for prototyping and seed funding. NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore will provide business mentoring and incubation support. MyGov, the government's online portal, will be extended to the participants for registration.

"TI believes in nurturing engineering students through hour university program, especially through experiential learning. IICDC is a great example of this. We are thankful to all the partners for helping us build IICDC as a thriving platform for young minds to generate ideas and then launch their start-ups," said Sanjay Srivastava, Director, TI India University Program.

Professor Suresh Bhagavatula, Chairperson, Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Development, N S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) at IIM Bangalore, said: "IIMB sees an exciting opportunity through this collaboration with TI on the IICDC by coming across unique entrepreneurial ideas from the best talents of the country and helping them incubate the ideas and 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."

"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 H.K. Mittal, advisor and head of NSTEDB, DST.

"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," said CEO of MyGov, Gaurav Dwivedi.