Ericsson names team from Texas A&M University as finalist in Ericsson Innovation Awards

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) has named a team of students from Texas A&M University as one of the four finalists of the Ericsson Innovation Awards, which will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, on April 15. A total of 270 teams from 43 countries submitted entries.

The competition gives students the opportunity to be fundamental drivers of change. Each team was required to submit an innovative idea to unlock the potential of education and learning through technology. To make their case, a business plan and a description of why their idea should be chosen had to be submitted by each team.

Texas A&M students Jeffrey Jensen and Hong Pan, known as team Pik-Do, reached the finals with a cloud-based learning platform. The platform uses digital interactive and visual-based learning methods to gather qualitative and quantitative data about student performance and subject matter understanding.

According to the team's entry: "Pik-Do offers students preparing for their professional career with the ability to collect, analyze, and visualize data from all educational experiences to develop a more targeted education and personalized professional development plan. For educators, both academic and in continuing education or professional training, it provides granular analytics on an individual's performance, broad reaching information to enable self- and course-assessment, and tools for early identification of learning disabilities. In the workplace, it provides professionals with the tools to analyze current employees and potential employees and provides in depth information about a student so businesses to make a more confident hiring decision. These features are facilitated through a user interface that easily links Pik-Do into any social networking platform."

Team Pikdo will travel to Stockholm for the final on April 15, where the winner will be decided.

ABOUT THE ERICSSON INNOVATION AWARDS

Started in 2009, the competition began as the Ericsson Application Awards, a research and development initiative to spark app development and boost innovation.

In 2015, the competition changed its name to the Ericsson Innovation Awards, and the scope was broadened to target university talent globally. It has moved from being a competition based on app development to one focusing on innovation.

With education playing a key part in the move toward Ericsson's vision of the Networked Society – where everything that can be connected will be connected – the 2015 theme is The Future of Learning.

The competition has been open to students from any academic institution, and in 2015, 270 teams from 43 countries entered.

THE COMPETITION

Each team was required to provide a product description document, a business case and a description of why their idea should be chosen, along with contact information.

Ten semifinalists were then chosen by a mix of an Ericsson jury and an open voting process. The Ericsson jury then whittled down this group to the four teams that are in the finals.

A specially-composed finalist jury will then decide who gets first, second and third place.

The prizes are EUR 25,000 for first place, EUR 10,000 for second place and EUR 5,000 for third. All 10 semifinalists will be invited to an interview with Ericsson, with the possibility of landing either a job or an internship after their studies.

The evaluation criteria for 2015 are:

• CSR positive impact – Technology For Good
• Global versus local (multimarket potential)
• Value argumentation – potential revenue or cost reduction
• Can the idea be easily developed?
• User benefit – can the idea be easily deployed?
• Innovative solution.

NOTES TO EDITORS

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Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society – a world leader in communications technology and services. Our long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future.

Our services, software and infrastructure – especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud – are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities.

With approximately 115,000 professionals and customers in 180 countries, we combine global scale with technology and services leadership. We support networks that connect more than 2.5 billion subscribers. Forty percent of the world’s mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. And our investments in research and development ensure that our solutions – and our customers – stay in front.

Founded in 1876, Ericsson has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Net sales in 2014 were SEK 228.0 billion (USD 33.1 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX stock exchange in Stockholm and the NASDAQ in New York.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT

Jimmy Duvall
Ericsson Media Relations
Phone: 972-583-5282
E-mail: jimmy.duvall@ericsson.com