Samsung recognizes Next-Gen Technology Creators

Some of the futuristic innovations by IIT Madras students have been recognized at the Samsung Innovation Awards 2013 held recently in the city. The 2013 edition of the Samsung Innovation Awards was conducted by the Samsung Research Institute, Bangalore in collaboration with the Centre for Innovation at IIT Madras.

The Awards invited innovative projects from student teams advised by faculty members in the areas of Web Technology, Human Machine Interface (HMI), Embedded & Hardware System Design, Graphics & Visualization, Audio/Visual Content Processing, Cloud Computing and Novel Product Design.

Aloknath De, Senior VP & Chief Technology Officer, Samsung Research Institute, Bangalore, said, “Samsung has a strong history of innovation, and at the Samsung Research Institute we pride ourselves on our ability to create cutting-edge technology that goes into defining the future. We are, therefore, very keen to be a catalyst in encouraging research and inculcating the spirit of innovation among the student community. These awards are a way for us to spot fresh ideas that have potential and assist in taking them to the next level. We are pleased to see the level of innovation and creativity among these IIT students; we had a delightful time vetting through and shortlisting entries.”

The awards were initiated three months ago and received overwhelming student participation. Seven entries made it to the finals after a thorough round of shortlisting by IIT-Madras faculty.  The winners were chosen at the final jury round based on their innovativeness, feasibility, usability, relevance and overall impact on masses. The jury comprised Dr Aloknath De, Senior VP & Chief Technology Officer, Samsung Research Institute, Bangalore, and Dr L. S. Ganesh, Dean – Students, IIT, Madras.

The first prize was won by the team “3D Tube” (Team members: C. Praneeth Kumar, Chiranjoy Chattopadhyay, Cheekati Yeswanth and Sake Sunil Kumar) for creating a new interface to manipulate digital information directly. Vineet Upadhyay won the second prize for his project “Facial Analytics” and the third prize was won by the team “Incense” (Team members: Ashish Bajaj, Stephen Ipe Varghese, Rahul Dcunha and Karthik A), which is about electricfield sensing. The top three winners received cash awards worth Rs.100,000, Rs.75,000 and Rs.50,000, respectively. The rest of the finalists received Samsung products as consolation prizes.