NOVATE – the annual innovation challenge of Chitkara University brings together innovative minds

The Annual Innovation Challenge of Chitkara University – NOVATE culminated today into an exclusive exposition at Explore Hub, where 50 teams from Chitkara University, Punjab, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh and Chitkara International School, Chandigarh, participated. 12 Problems identified from within University campuses were thrown as innovation challenges to students and faculty in November 2016. The students and faculty members worked relentlesssly on finding innovative solutions to these problems and presented Proof of Concepts, Prototypes and Minimum Viable Products to eminent jury members. “Laundry collection system” by Lalit Goyal, Lavisha Rana, Lavisha Mehndiratta, bagged the first prize of Rupees 1Lac, the first runner-up comprising of team members Chisty Kaushal, Kartik Vij and Shivam bagged the prize money of Rs 50000 for their innovative solution for “Automatic entry record management system” and the third runner up Vidhyotma Gandhi, Samiha, Shivam and Shefali bagged the prize money of Rs 25000 for designing a novel “Food transportation system”. In addition, the jury choice award were given to “Novel Accipients and derivatives” led by Dr.Sandeep Arora and for “Wastewater from AC/RO utilization” by Kunwarpreet Singh from Chitkara International school.

The jury comprised of Mr Sharad Sharma, cofounder, iSpirt, serial entrepreneur and investor, Mr Satish Gokhale, founder Design Directions, Design thinker, Ms Manjula Sridhar, founder, ArgByte and Ms Prathibha Satry, founder, Innofest.

Hon’ble Vice Chancellor Dr Madhu Chitkara, with the jury members, presented the awards to winners and said, “NOVATE is setting the ground for path breaking innovations at Chitkara University. I am eagerly awaiting to see these solutions getting implemented at the University”. Mr Sumeer Walia, Director, CEED also congratulated the winners and offered six months incubation space at the ‘Explore Hub’ – State-of-art Incubation centre at the University, to NOVATE participants, willing to set up his/her venture. Dr Sachin Ahuja, Associate Director CURIN, Chief Mentor and the backbone of NOVATE encouraged participants to make the prototypes scalable and turn them into commercial products, if possible.