Bengaluru-headquartered L&T Technology Services, a global pure play engineering services company has announced the winners of the 5th Edition of its annual academia-industry innovation initiative, TECHgium.

TECHGium was conceptualised to provide engineering students with an early exposure to real-life problem statements faced by industry. Over the years, the event has been one of the most sought-after forums for engineering students passionate about pursuing an innovation-driven career in the global engineering and technology services domain. The current edition saw 30,421 students, from 444 reputed engineering institutes across India vying for the top spot.

The finalists presented PoCs (proof of concepts) on several innovations involving cutting edge technology trends such as artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning, renewable energy, drone technology, compute vision and EV batteries among others. Some of the concepts showcased were based on drone supervisors, EV battery optimisation, hover-drones with dynamic charging via wireless power transfer, easy to attach IoT crane box, self-cleaning solar panels, end-to-end fully automatic deep learning algorithm for scientific document denoising, solar tracking system for efficient power generation using image processing and automated payment mechanism for contractual agreements.

The team from Indian Institute of Information Technology Design & Manufacturing Jabalpur, were declared winners of the 5th Edition of TECHgium for creating a prototype of an easy to attach IoT crane box. The first runners-up were students from IIT Roorkee for their solution on self-cleaning solar panels, while a student from IIT Guwahati earned the third place, for his concept on hover-drone with dynamic charging via wireless power transfer.

A Special Jury Award was given to the students from Bannari Amman Institute of Technology for their concept on end-to-end fully automatic deep learning algorithm for scientific document denoising.

Amit Chadha, CEO and MD, L&T Technology Services said, “It is only through such opportunities and early-stage learning initiatives that we can inspire engineering students to embrace innovation-led digital engineering roles and drive the future of technology.”

LTTS’ TECHgium was started in 2016 and is a popular open-innovation forum among the students and faculty of engineering institutes across the country. The top teams this year took home Rs 20 lakh in prize money.