Incubating innovative ideas

Teenovators 2015

Hyderabad: Young minds gathered at ‘Teenovators 2015’, a National Innovation Challenge for students of Class IX - XII, organised by Manipal University and INK at an event held in Birla Science Museum on Friday. The innovation challenge was launched in nine cities across India; twelve schools from each city will be selected out of which the final eight will advance to the finale.

Sixty one schools from Hyderabad registered out of which around 32 schools submitted their projects. A panel of judges selected the preliminary challenge winners from Hyderabad at the event yesterday who will now move on to the intercity challenge.

The Hyderabad Challenge received tremendous response with various schools displaying their innovative ideas with the help of their faculty. Anuradha Gunupati, Founder Trustee of Dr Reddy’s Foundation felicitated all the participants and congratulated the students for their active participation. “It is great to see such young students being provided a platform to display their skills. Such programmes will help students think out of the box and come up with innovative ideas,” she said.

Teenovators Programme Director Srimathi Prasad said that this challenge tests students’ analytical mindset. She further added “As part of innovation challenge we have conducted a 20 minute- test with 20 questions to check students’ analytical skills. Only 3 out of 60,000 students scored a perfect score.

What we are looking for is lateral thinking, out of the box thinking, perseverance, leadership skills and the ability to take risk. We got to test these skills in different schools across India. Every school was then asked to select a team of five students from among the toppers in innovation challenge and submit a project.”

“We give the students a chance to dream first and then turn their dreams into reality. Through this programme we want to nurture young minds and build a supportive environment that will cultivate entrepreneurship at a young age.

As part of the preliminary challenge, students were asked to come up with a project addressing the problem area and recommending a solution. The selected schools will head to the intercity challenge and get an opportunity to compete at the National Innovation Challenge which will be held in Jan 2016,” she explained.

The students came up with innovative ideas with the help of their faculty, the students conceptualised their projects addressing the needs of today’s issues and for a better future. Some of the projects that found an entry at the regional level were hydro electric harvester, vehicle alert system at blind u-turns, intelligence emergency light control, e-space and cleaning of debris in the space, the arm of god version-II, developing an app to create world class athletes, cycle that carries the world, solar micro-grid, automatic solar tracking system, solar air conditioner, and a project on bio-diesel.

These students would end up as wonder kids if given a chance to implement their ideas. The projects were so impressive that 14 schools were given an entry to the next level instead of twelve. The project that scored the highest in the preliminary challenge was the one that focused on addressing iron deficiency in women.

Daily news served as a guide for this 17-year-old to come up with a project that will safeguard lives while driving. Mohd Nasir of Sri Chaitanya Junior College said that events like Teenovators give us a platform to launch our ideas at a young age.

“I want to be an advanced engineer who is able to address the needs of today’s world. I have done my research on the death rate in our state. Most of the accidents occur at blind u-turns, you can never be sure of the vehicle coming from the opposite direction, especially at the Ghats.

So, I along with my team went on to create an alarm system which will indicate us about the vehicle coming from the opposite direction, this system will alert the driver and prevent accidents,” he briefed about the project.

Ola, Uber and other high-end apps served as an inspiration for this student from Army Public School, Golconda. “Such programmes build our level of confidence and help us grow as individuals with great talent. Many of the athletes who are capable of representing our country at various international games are sidelined.

So our project is about creating world-class athletes in India. We want to give these athletes’ a platform by creating an app that will help them connect with coaches, centers where they can be trained and people who can guide them,” said the student representing the team.