Valeo’s Innovation Challenge is its third year and the contest has generated a lot of buzz with a total of 3,302 students from around the world having signed up to participate.

In all, 1,344 teams from 65 countries and 785 universities have submitted their application in one of the two available categories, with 60% of the teams competing in the "technological innovation" category and 40% of the teams in the "idea for new ways of using cars" category. The goal in each category is to win a grand prize of €100,000.

 The participation and enthusiasm of students from Indian universities has grown a lot this year with about 496 teams from 274 universities participating. M Kumarasamy College of Engineering, Anna University-Chennai, Sastra University are some of the colleges/universities that will be competing from India for one of the most exciting challenge to invent the car of tomorrow.

The 24 short-listed teams will be announced on March 18, 2016, after which Valeo will grant them each €5,000 to develop their idea by building a functional prototype, application or other solution.

Two categories for student creativity

The challenge put up to the students this year is "Come up with an innovation or idea that will make cars more intelligent, intuitive, green and fun by 2030."

 The "idea for new ways of using cars" category, created for the first time this year, has drawn 1,323 students from a variety of disciplines, including sociology, business, urban planning and design, indicating that a broad, diverse segment of society views the auto industry as dynamic and appealing. At the same time, there are 1,979 students competing in the "technological innovation" category.

70 experts to select semi-finalists

Valeo has assigned 70 experts spread across the Group's R&D centers worldwide – as well as a number of independent scientists –to examine each of the projects in order to select 24 teams that will advance to the next round.