IIT Kharagpur’s Young Innovators Program 2019 Highlights Environmental Concerns

The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) has just completed its three-day Young Innovators Program 2019, where the theme had been “Energy and Environment”. The event saw a large participation of school students from classes VIII to X from schools throughout India.

Among the themes that the students had to brainstorm for and build creative and innovative ideas for combating various issues included:

• Health and Cleanliness

• Hardware Modelling

• Product Design

• Disaster Management

• Financial Inclusion

• Energy and Environment

The grande finale of IIT Kharagpur’s Young Innovators Program 2019 was held over a span of three days, which ended on 10th November 2019.

The winning teams had been awarded different prizes, including the winning trophy, first runner-up and second runner-up. The winners have been mentioned below.

IIT Kharagpur YIP 2019 Winners

The IIT Kharagpur YIP 2019 Winners was awarded to Team Divyang from KIIT International School Bhubaneswar. The team consisted of three students, Ankit Pradhan, Divyan Sahoo and Pritesh Deb. The team developed a green water dispenser which could be used by the differently-abled. The dispenser could be operated by the user either by foot or body-weight through an uncomplicated lever for various purposes like showering, bathing their guide dog or even watering the plants, among other activities.

IIT Kharagpur YIP 2019 First Runner-Up

The IIT Kharagpur YIP 2019 first runner-up award was given to Team Kriyative Bhavanites from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavans Public School Hyderabad, with team members Shreyas Bhargava and Siddharth Yellanki. They won the prize for inventing an activated charcoal smoke filter that had been made with the use of corn cobs and coconut shells, intended to be fitted on vehicles to reduce emissions.

IIT Kharagpur YIP 2019 Second Runner-Up

The IIT Kharagpur YIP 2019 second runner-up prize was awarded to team Innovative Loops from Brahm Prakash D.A.V. School Hyderabad. Team members Raj Bhattacharjee, P Pranavaditya and Shreyas Biradar, who had been inspired by the Chandrayan Mission, developed an Astron Telescope using 7 plane mirrors, placed in a honey-comb shape which will facilitate in capturing high quality and bright images during space missions.

There were several extraordinary ideas and innovations which had been witnessed at the young Innovators Program 2019 at IIT Kharagpur. But one of the inventions that have been displayed at the event was by a team of students from Delhi Public School Ruby Park, Kolkata who developed Sakhi. Sakhi is a biodegradable sanitary pad which has been made with the use of natural materials like cotton, dry leaves, resin and coconut husk. The invention had been tagged as a special mention by the judges, which consisted of a panel of faculty members from IIT Kharagpur, especially for developing a product considering the social stigma around the subject.

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Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Associate Dean of International Relations, stated that event saw a large number of participation from female students, as well as international schools and district schools of India. However, the biggest achievement was the quality of ideas and the exceptional technology used by the students. Many of the students also worked with Arduino as well as use Artificial Intelligence (AI), to develop the solutions to certain problems.

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There were a total of 32 teams who had been shortlisted for the final two rounds of the competition, which had begun on 8th November 2019. Among them, 6 teams had been shortlisted for the final round of the competition. The teams had been evaluated on the originality of the idea, the quality of their presentation as well as the social impact of the ideas. Like last year, the competition also received international applications. Among the international competitions, two teams from Singapore, and one team each from ASEAN countries and UAE were shortlisted for the semi-finals.