March 24, 2011
School of Engineering, Bengaluru
Aaditya Sriram, from our Bengaluru campus, represented Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham at the University Mobile Challenge conducted as part of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The international competition saw participation from students of 13 universities and 11 countries. India was represented only by Aaditya from Amrita and another student from IIT Kharagpur.
Aaditya teamed with students from University of California, Berkeley. Each team of two to six students was required to present a proto-type app that they had built and the business model for a company that could take that idea to the market. Each team demonstrated their innovative concepts in front of a panel of prominent judges from the mobile industry and from venture capital firms.
Aaditya’s team placed first in the competition*. Below is a short synopsis of his participation in the contest penned by Aaditya himself.
Barcelona, the perfect place to hold the Mobile World Congress, saw a new event this year. It was organized by BMIC (Berkeley Mobile International Collaborative), that works with leading universities from around the globe to support entrepreneurial talent in students.
The event, University Mobile Challenge, saw several teams compete to build the best application with a strong business model. Say we were a startup company; we were required to give a 7-minute presentation to venture capitalists and people from Nokia, Navteq, Blue Run, Standard Chartered and other leading companies.
After the presentation there was a 5 minute Q&A round where the judges tested the research work done by the students with respect to our business models as well as risk management in their application building methods.
When the results were announced, we found out that we had stood first! We had proposed Noodle, a rich note-taking + OCR application for students. We were thrilled!
As winners, we received passes to an App planet event where we participated in a discussion on phone apps and markets. We were also invited for a dinner with venture capitalists.
Overall, I am really happy to have represented Amrita at this international event. The event was really supportive of the student community; most companies are looking at employing students in new programs they intend to launch.
There was a huge hall, as big as a cricket stadium where various companies had put up stalls to showcase their future products, things that are not yet launched! It was an out-of-the-world experience using these products before the rest of the world. The congress also had many companies showcasing their ideas for future developments in the field of mobile computing.
In my opinion, the congress was a huge success not only because of the large number of people who attended, but also the tremendous number of ideas that were generated during the proceedings.
On another note, the congress did a fair job of being environment friendly. All the bags and stationary given to the participants was made from recycling. Overall the congress was a great experience for me, an experience to be remembered and re-lived every year!
* THE WINNERS
1. Noodle – Amrita School of Engineering, Bangalore and University of California, Berkeley – a rich note-taking + OCR application for students.
2. ASK Messaging – Michigan State, an incredible medical tool letting people with motor control disabilities use iPads and iPhones.
3. ShareMySpot – ESSEC Paris, a highly innovative parking application letting you sell your parking spot to someone else as soon as you no longer need it.
4. Phonestar – Florida State, a remarkable plug-in device for turning mobile phones into an OnStar-like service.
