KPIT Sparkle Announces Winners of 2022 Innovation Challenge

Pune – KPIT, a global leader in automotive software and mobility solutions, announced the winners of KPIT Sparkle 2022, an annual national design and development innovation contest for Engineering, Science and Design students. The competition is amongst India’s most sought-after innovation platforms that support budding young innovators to develop indigenous solutions to real-world challenges in the energy and mobility sector. The platform nurtures, mentors and supports aspiring entrepreneurs and connects them with incubators in the ecosystem to transform their inventive ideas into viable products. It encourages and facilitates students to secure intellectual property rights for their solutions.

KPIT Sparkle 2022 received more than 1300 ideas from over 15,000 students across more than 800 colleges in India. The top 24 teams presented working prototypes of their solutions at the grand finale held on 26 March 2022 at the Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering (PCCOE), Pune. Over the last eight years, KPIT Sparkle has received nearly 16,000 ideas from more than one lakh students nationally.

Dr Abhay Jere, Chief Innovation Officer at Ministry of Education (Govt. of India), and Mrs Lila Poonawalla, Chairperson of Lila Poonawalla Foundation, were the guest of honour and chief guest respectively, at the grand finale event.

The Winners

Team Elespa which was a joint project of Dr D.Y. Patil Institute of Technology, Pune, Sandip University, Nasik; College of Engineering, Pune and Jayawantrao Sawant College of Engineering, Pune won the Platinum Award of INR 10,00,000 for designing an advanced automated hybrid electric vehicle with a performance monitoring system which solves the problem of long battery charging times, range concerns, lack of charging stations and high initial cost.

Team Kissan Connect from S. G. Balekundri Institute of Technology, Belgaum won the Gold Award of INR 5,00,000 for designing a multifunctional retrofit for EV tractors, which can integrate all the various attachments.

Team Electrophene from Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, won the Silver Award of INR 2,50,000 for designing Hydrogen, Fossil fuel and Electric based three fuel systems for two wheelers.

Two teams won the Abhinavi Prizes for the following innovation:
Team Unanimous4 from Jayawantrao Sawant College of Engineering, Pune won the Abhinavi1 Award and a cash prize of INR 2,00,000 for designing a multipurpose agricultural Electric Vehicle that can perform agricultural tasks using AR/VR, ML/AI, IoT technologies.
Team Dravya from Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering, Pune won the Abhinavi2 Award and a cash prize of INR 1,00,000 for designing a battery cooling system that uses dielectric fluid to reduce battery temperature instead of forced air cooling and indirect liquid cooling.
Speaking on the occasion, Ravi Pandit, Chairman of KPIT Technologies, said, “KPIT Sparkle is an expression of our efforts to achieve sustainability. Over the past eight years, KPIT Sparkle has emerged as India’s foremost innovation platform to encourage budding young innovators in the country to develop indigenous solutions to real-world challenges in the energy and mobility sector. It will be instrumental in contributing to our new vision of re-imagining mobility with an ecosystem to build a clean, smart and secure world.”

Incubation opportunities

KPIT has transformed from a competition to a platform in association with Sparkle Incubation Centre. This year, KPIT partnered with the AIC-Pinnacle Entrepreneurship Forum; International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad – Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE); Marathwada Accelerator for Growth and Incubation Council (MAGIC); Symbiosis Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (SCEI); TBI@KEC; Bhau Institute of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership; iCreate to provide incubation opportunities to deserving ideas.

Knowledge partners

KPIT Sparkle 2022 was privileged to be associated with the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India; Ministry of New and Renewable Energy; All India Council for Technical Education; Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ESSCI); National Institute of Design, Triz Association of Asia, MathWorks; and Anna University as its knowledge partners.

The Jury

The finalists were evaluated by a jury comprising national and international experts from the academic, business, automotive and technology fields, including Mr A.S. Ravikumar, General Manager, Product Engineering at Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Pvt. Ltd.; Dr Milind Rane, Chair Professor at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay); Dr D. Mohanlal, Professor at Anna University; Balkrishna Mahajan, CEO at Ticket Design; Dr Siddharth Mukhopadhyay, Professor and H.O.D. Electrical Engineering Dept at IIT Kharagpur; Dr Sanjeev Katti, Ex-Director General at ONGC Energy Centre; Dr Somnath Sengupta, Professor at IIT Kharagpur; Anupam Jalote, CEO at iCreate; P.S. Kanan, Manager, at TBI Kongu Engineering College; Paul Sanjay, Technical Centre, Head of Engineering, Off-Highway Business Unit at DANA India Technical Centre; Poyni Bhat, CEO at SINE; Mr Sunil Motwani, Country Head at MathWorks; Salim Huzefa, Director at Dassault Systems; Anurag Pandey, Professor at Anna University; Deepesh Gujrathi, Senior System Architect at KPIT; Dr Padmakar Deshmukh, Head, Dept of Mechanical Engineering at PCCOE.

Academic Partner

Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering, Pune, hosted the KPIT Sparkle Grand Finale for the fourth time at its premises.