Ericsson announces the launch of Ericsson Innovation Awards India 2016

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) today announced the launch of the Ericsson Innovation Awards India 2016 in association with Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT). Students from fourteen premier engineering institutes are being invited to submit their innovation projects by Ericsson India with the objective of supporting and helping incubate the best student ideas.

The Ericsson Innovation Awards India seek student innovations in the following areas: 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 from the following institutes: IITs across Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, Roorkee, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Mandi, Hyderabad as well as IISc Bangalore, BITS Pilani, IIIT Gwalior, IIIT Delhi, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi.

Following the preliminary screening phase at their respective institutes, the student proposals from all the participating institutes will go through a shortlisting process. 10-12 Student proposals will be shortlisted and financially supported for developing the proof of concept /initial prototype for their Projects. They will be given a two month period (Feb ~April 2016) for developing the same. The Final Winner selection will be basis the Proof of Concept/ Initial Prototypes developed by the students and presented by them at a Mega event to be organized at IIT, Delhi in May 2016.

The Final Winner selection will be based on criteria such as degree of innovation, feasibility, usability, relevance, time to market and the overall impact/benefit to industry. The jury will comprise of senior members from Ericsson, FITT and eminent industry experts.

Paolo Colella, Head of Region India at Ericsson, says, “These awards aim to encourage and promote the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship amongst students. By expanding the scale of these Awards from seven institutes in 2015 to fourteen engineering institutes this year, we want to reach out to more students and give them a platform to become successful entrepreneurs. As a Company that takes pride in its culture of innovation, we are looking at giving a further boost to the spirit of entrepreneurship thriving in the country through this initiative.”

Anil Wali, Managing Director, FITT, said: “We saw some very good participation and innovation projects come up in the inaugural edition of Ericsson Innovation Awards India. The Winner of Ericsson Innovation Awards India 2015 has emerged as a successful entrepreneur with his own startup and smart jewelry/app called ‘Safer’. By helping students incubate their projects at IIT approved technology business incubators, we are not only encouraging students to come forward with their innovation ideas but are also helping them translate those ideas into viable businesses.”

Ericsson Innovation Awards India were launched in partnership with FITT for the first time last year and drew a very strong student response from the seven participating IITs.

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