The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : IIT Madras team wins ‘Edison Challenge’

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IIT Madras team wins ‘Edison Challenge’

Staff Reporter

Over 200 teams from across the country took part

Ecstatic: The victorious team from IIT Madras with their trophy.

Bangalore: The John F. Welch Technology Centre situated on the outskirts of the city hosted the second edition of General Electric’s “Edison Challenge”, a competition pitting science students from across the country against each other to find the best technological innovations to provide electricity in rural India.

The event, organised in collaboration with the Techno Entrepreneurial Promotion Program (TePP), a wing of the Department of Science and Technology, attracted over 200 teams consisting of students in the age group of 19 to 22.

Eighteen teams were shortlisted for the finals which was judged by a 10-member panel comprising experts from GE’s technology centre.

The winning team comprising Kaushik Anand K., Midhun Salim, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Ashwin Ramesh and Aditya Harit from IIT Madras walked away with the top prize of Rs. 5 lakh.

They won the prize for an idea on power generation that involved “gasifying dehusked paddy” and distributing the power generated through the innovative concept of AC coupled micro-grid.

The idea was based on the construction of community toilets keeping in mind village dynamics and using the waste generated to produce biogas and distribute it using balloon canisters. An innovative idea of generating oil from algae got the team from Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Sriperumbudur, the second place with a cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh.

Members of the panel included J. Gururaja, former Adviser to Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India; H. Gouda, assistant general manager, Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd.; A.S. Rao, former director, TEPP, DSIR; H. Dasappa, Centre for Sustainable Technologies, IISc., Bangalore; Shivaram Malavalli, Technology Business Incubator Bangalore Cell of Ministry of Science and Technology as well as members of the technology centre.

GE employees were given the chance to vote for what they thought was the most interesting and innovative project. PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, bagged the award for their project relating to providing thermal energy from a solar pond which was used to drive a Rankine cycle heat engine. The team walked away with a cash prize of Rs. 40,000.

Abhinanda Sarkar, quality leader at the GE centre and member of the organising committee, said: “The Edison Challenge was designed with two things in mind: first, to generate ideas for an interdisciplinary approach to energy and second, to surface the challenges and opportunities particular to rural communities. The students met these objectives admirably.”

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