KPIT Sparkle’22 innovation contest’s winners include 4 Pune-based firms

KPIT, a Pune-based provider of automotive software and mobility solutions, has 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, said an official statement.

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, it added.

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, 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.
• To empower women entrepreneurship, Dana India collaborated with KPIT Sparkle as a CSR Partner to recognize the Women Entrepreneur – Abhinavi Award. The two teams that won the Abhinavi Award for their ideas are as follows:

1. 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.
2. 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.

Ravi Pandit, Chairman of KPIT Technologies, said, “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.”