A shampoo to cleanse your hair without using water ... a cleaning agent and a special detergent to mop floors and wash curtains respectively without the use of water, and a special process to culture algae and use their properties for adhesive purposes!
These, and many more business case studies and innovation submissions by students will see the light during the sixth annual Henkel Innovation Challenge (HIC), an initiative by the over Euro 16.5 billion German fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) major Henkel that is designed to develop a concept for an innovative and sustainability-related product or technology for a Henkel brand according to the vision and market needs in 2050.
In its sixth year in running, and third in India, HIC is open to students of all subjects, including economics, engineering and natural sciences. Students all over the world, including teams from 12 European, nine Asia-Pacific, four Latin American and North American countries will compete for a final place in HIC, the international finals of which will be held in Shanghai in March 2013.
“We started HIC in Germany in 2007, which initially was only for Europe. Students are tomorrow’s customers, and when HIC was initially kicked-off, the idea was to tap the youngsters of today, who would be consuming most of our products in the coming years. The objective was just to tap into their minds to know how do they see and perceive our brands and products that would be coming in the future,” says Ranjan Das, HR director, Henkel India.
Henkel has extended HIC to the US and Asia-Pacific in 2009, and in India a year later. While the programme was initially launched only for its cosmetics division, it has now been extended to the company’s entire business line, including laundry, home care and adhesives, he adds.
“Last year, the event, the international finals of which were held at Poland, has witnessed an overall participation of 980 teams (each having two students), including 86 teams from India. This year, the number of case studies and idea submissions from India has already crossed 311,” Das says.
Not just offering an around-the-world ticket worth Euro 10,000 for the winning team, Euro 4,000 for the runner-ups and Euro 2,000 for the team that stood third, Henkel also takes the winning ideas to the research and development (R&D) stage, provided they meet the basic criteria that the company sets, both in terms of innovation and branding.
“The way HIC is organised is to get ideas, and to get a future talent and product pipeline. There are already two projects that we had received from last year's event in the evaluation stage. These would be taken for further evaluation and later to the R&D stage. The intellectual property (IP) of these innovations, however, will remain with Henkel. Of the eight finalists that we had last year, we have invited four students to do an internship with us,” he adds.
