Winner of NOVATE+ 2021- National Level Annual Hackathon

NOVATE+ is an annual competition organized by CURIN wherein innovative engineering ideas are awarded funding for developing advanced level prototypes. Overtime, this competition has become one of the biggest platforms in the region for showcasing innovative project ideas and for winning prototyping funding. In addition to funding support, this forum also provides a platform where participating teams receive mentoring, expert guidance and collaboration opportunities.

This year NOVATE+ 2021 was organized during January 2021 – May 2021 with a theme Confluence of Academia, MSMEs and Start-ups to Address Real World Problems. We aimed at supporting only those projects where there was a possibility of developing solutions that could be immediately deployed in field with support from industry partners. In order to facilitate industry collaborations, we identified several MSMEs in the region and we connected them with people from academia for writing joint projects for NOVATE+ 2021.

We received 79 entries and a panel of reviewers critically analyzed each of these project proposals and it recommended 22 projects for jury round. The jury round of the competition was held during April 16-17, 2021 and we had invited two seasoned industry professionals to witness the live presentations made by these 22 teams. The sessions were chaired by the jury -Dr. Shivraj Dhaka – Counsellor, Indian Green Building Council, Mr. Sachin Bharadwaj – DGM, Sigma Electric Manufacturing Corporation, Dr. Sachin Ahuja – Director, Research, Dr. Gurjinder Singh – Assistant Professor being the internal members from Chitkara University.

NOVATE+ 2021 was anchored by Chitkara University NewGen IEDC, Chitkara University TEC (both these entities have been set-up by DST, Govt. of India in Chitkara University), and Institution’s Innovation Council (IIC).