'iTech 2015' Sets a Benchmark for Innovation of Emerging and Disruptive Technology Through Its IoT Hackathon
Bangalore, India, July 9, 2015 (Newswire.com) - ITC Infotech, a leading global IT services & solutions company and a fully owned subsidiary of ITC Ltd recently concluded the ‘iTech 2015’, its first annual technology conference. As part of iTech 2015, ITC Infotech organized a 2-day Internet of Things (IoT) hackathon on July 4th and 5th, 2015, at its Bengaluru campus. Microsoft Azure was the official cloud partner for the event.
The hackathon was organised for the brightest of minds comprising of IoT start-ups, Professionals & Developers and Students. A panel discussion on ‘Creating future ready businesses with IoT’ witnessed the likes of Ravi Gururaj – Chairman & Co-Founder of Frictionless Ventures; Dr. Srikanth Sundararajan – Venture Partner, Helion Venture Partners; Derick Jose – Co-founder & Chief Product Officer, Flutura Decision Sciences & Analytics and V V Rajasekhar – Senior Vice President, ITC Infotech and Chief Information Officer, ITC Limited.
The hackathon provided participants with an opportunity to develop ideas into prototypes across a wide range of business challenges in the categories of smart retail, smart manufacturing, smart supply chain, smart agriculture. It also included an open category which permitted entries that were assessed on the strength of the business case presented and the viability for adoption and implementation.
A total of 36 teams participated, which were sifted from over 700 entries received. The teams presented their solutions to business users and validated their ideas through live simulations of real business scenarios. The solutions were judged on whether it addresses a real business problem, if it is differentiated from alternatives in the market and if the solution was demonstrated successfully.
The winners, Team Aditya Bhola, Manoharan Ramasamy, Ravi Sharma and Hansraj were awarded Rs. 2, 00,000 for their project in the Smart Agriculture category for their innovative solution on smart irrigation. The market problem targeted by the team was water conservation with optimal crop irrigation and enhancement of crop productivity. The solution touches upon all facets of a typical IoT project namely sensors, edge intelligence and cloud computing that also empowers farmers with best practices and historical results.
Two teams made it to the runners-up; Team Senthilkumar M, Balaji Babu TR and Anuj Duggal who built an IoT based farming land monitoring solution and Team Nitika Rajput and Tanmay Baranwal built a smart security monitoring system for agricultural use. Both teams were also part of the smart agriculture category and were awarded Rs. 1, 00,000 each for their individual projects.
Ms. Sushma Rajagopalan, CEO & MD, ITC Infotech, said, “We are encouraged by the success of iTech 2015. It set a benchmark for innovation of emerging and disruptive technologies. We have witnessed great potential and some very creative IoT solutions developed by contestants from all categories, which was the aim of the hackathon. We definitely look forward to partner with the top contestants who have potential to develop their solution, create a joint-go-to market and provide market access and further drive our initiative to encourage and nurture entrepreneurs and start-ups.”
The platform’s focus is to leverage emerging and disruptive technologies to create business-ready solutions to address some of the most challenging problems faced by industry. The programme is part of the company’s larger initiative to encourage and nurture tech entrepreneurs and start-ups.
About iTech 2015
iTech, an ITC Infotech initiative, is an annual technology conference. The platform will focus on leveraging emerging and disruptive technologies to create business-ready solutions, for addressing some of the most challenging problems faced by the industry. For more information, please visit www.itcinfotech.com/itech
About ITC Infotech
ITC Infotech is a specialised global scale - full service provider of Domain, Data and Digital technology solutions, backed by a strong business and technology consulting focus. The company caters to enterprises in Supply Chain based industries (CPG, Retail, Manufacturing, Hi-Tech) and Services (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance, Airline, Hospitality) through a combination of traditional and newer business models, as a long term sustainable partner.
ITC Infotech is a fully owned subsidiary of USD 8bn ITC Ltd –ranked as India’s most admired company by Fortune India.
For more information, please visit www.itcinfotech.com
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