IBM, IIM-A announce cognitive entrepreneurship challenge 2016

Software giant IBM and Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad on Monday announced the Cognitive Entrepreneurship Challenge (CEC) 2016 to help students and start-ups create cutting-edge solutions using cognitive technologies.

The CEC aims to encourage young entrepreneurs and the student community to build business solutions around capabilities using IBM's cloud platform Bluemix.

Bluemix is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering from IBM based on open standards and cloud to build, deploy, manage and run omni channel applications like web and mobile, big data and other smart services.

Other than the IBM Bluemix platform, students will also have access to other relevant IBM technology platforms in the areas of analytics and security, the company said in a statement.

"We are pleased to partner with IIM-A on the first-ever cognitive entrepreneur challenge in India. We see this as the start of an exciting partnership, and a testimony to our commitment to make India Digital," said Prashant Pradhan, Watson India Lead, IBM India/South Asia.

India as a region has tremendous potential for applying Cognitive at scale, and entrepreneurs here have shown tremendous creativity and passion in applying technology to create value. IBM is committed to creating innovation ecosystem by opening up Watson APIs to the world, Pradhan added.

The students and start-ups across India from all engineering and management disciplines will be invited to take part in this event.

The registrations for the challenge has already begun on September 5 with various rounds and the finale is expected to happen in mid-November this year, the report said.

The participants will be evaluated and mentored by the IBM India Watson team.

"Cognitive computing is fast augmenting human knowledge, capabilities and experience. The recent applications of this technology in data analytics, financial services, medical diagnostics and public service delivery shows potential to generate tremendous societal and enterprise valu"," said Anish Sugathan, Profesor and the Masterplan faculty advisor at IIM-A.

--IANS

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