PepsiCo awards US$ 100,000 to Change the Game winners from India for their plastic waste management idea
New Delhi: PepsiCo’s ‘Change the Game’ campus challenge invited millennials to share innovative business ideas for sustainable plastic packaging and recycling, in line with the company’s Performance with Purpose vision. The India winners, Tushar Vishnoi and Utkarsh Garg from IMT Ghaziabad, went on to compete with winners from other regions at the final round in Dubai and have been awarded a grant of US$ 100,000 to bring their idea to life. The India winners have also received an opportunity to start their career at PepsiCo India, as Management Trainees.
PepsiCo’s ‘Change the Game’ initiative, now it its third edition, is a much sought-after campus challenge that provides young talent a platform to share creative solutions to ‘real-life’ problem situations, with a chance to work with the company. The initiative witnessed 11,000 students from top B-schools in India putting their minds to make the world a better place by presenting solutions for sustainability.
Commenting about the initiative, Suchitra Rajendra – VP Human Resources India region, PepsiCo India said: “The ‘Change the Game’ challenge aims to spot the brightest talent by inviting them to develop sustainable and viable solutions to real issues. After a very intense selection process by the jury, I am very happy to share that the team from IMT Ghaziabad was amongst the finalists. We are delighted to have the India winners, Tushar Vishnoi and Utkarsh Garg, join PepsiCo India as Management Trainees, in addition to the US$ 100,000 fund to bring their idea to life.”
The IMT Ghaziabad team’s winning idea is a low-cost waste management solution capable of handling 18 tonnes of plastic annually per equipment unit, while helping to save time and effort. It involves using recovered plastic in multiple applications that not only create new revenue streams and savings but also social entrepreneurship opportunities that are in line with the PepsiCo’s 2025 Sustainability Agenda.
Speaking about their achievement, winners Tushar Vishnoi and Utkarsh Garg said, “We are thrilled to receive this $100,000 grant from to bring our project to life. The project needs intensive R&D to have a solid foundation. The implementation will require us to first, study the technologies deeper with the R&D team and modify them to fit our proposed business ecosystem with the government guidelines in mind. After gathering the design specifications, we will have several prototyping and testing stages before we formalize everything for industrial grade manufacturing. Post that, we will refine our business model with the help of the senior management to get the best out of this initiative once we go live.”