KPIT, a global automotive software and mobility solutions company has announced the winners of KPIT Sparkle 2022, its annual design and development contest for engineering, science and design students.

The competition received more than 1,300 ideas from over 15,000 students from more than 800 colleges in India. The top 24 teams presented working prototypes of their solutions at the grand finale held on March 26, 2022 at the Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering (PCCOE), Pune.

KPIT Sparkle is an innovation platforms that support young innovators to develop indigenous solutions to real-world challenges in the energy and mobility sector. The platform provides supports for the entrepreneurs and connects them with incubators in the ecosystem to transform their ideas into viable products. It also encourages and facilitates students to secure intellectual property rights for their solutions.

Over the last eight years, KPIT Sparkle has received nearly 16,000 ideas from more than 100,000 students nationally. The winners of the competition included –

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 Rs 10 lakh 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 Rs 500,000 for designing a multi-functional 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 Rs 250,000 for designing Hydrogen, fossil fuel and electric-based three fuel systems for two-wheelers.

Team Unanimous4 from Jayawantrao Sawant College of Engineering, Pune won the Abhinavi1 Award and a cash prize of Rs 200,000 for designing a multipurpose agricultural electric vehicle that can perform agricultural tasks using AR/VR, ML/AI, IoT technologies.  

Team Dravya from Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering, Pune won the Abhinavi2 Award and a cash prize of Rs 100,000 for designing a battery cooling system that uses dielectric fluid to reduce battery temperature instead of forced air cooling and indirect liquid cooling.

Dr Abhay Jere, chief innovation officer at Ministry of Education (government of India), and Lila Poonawalla, chairperson of Lila Poonawalla Foundation, were the guest of honour and chief guest respectively, at the grand finale event.

Ravi Pandit, chairman, 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.”

Incubation opportunities
KPIT says it has transformed from a competition to a platform in association with Sparkle Incubation Centre. This year, it has partnered with the AIC-Pinnacle Entrepreneurship Forum; International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad - Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE); Marathwada Accelerator for Growth and Incubation Council (MAGIC); Symbiosis Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (SCEI); TBI@KEC; Bhau Institute of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership; iCreate to provide incubation opportunities to deserving ideas.

The event was in association with the Department of Science and Technology, government of India; Ministry of New and Renewable Energy; All India Council for Technical Education; Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ESSCI); National Institute of Design, Triz Association of Asia, MathWorks; and Anna University as its knowledge partners.

The finalists were evaluated by a jury comprising national and international experts from the academic, business, automotive and technology fields, including A S Ravikumar, general manager – Product Engineering at Daimler India Commercial Vehicles; Dr Milind Rane, chair professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay; Dr D Mohanlal, professor at Anna University; Balkrishna Mahajan, CEO, Ticket Design; Dr Siddharth Mukhopadhyay, professor and H.O.D. – Electrical Engineering Dept,  IIT Kharagpur; Dr Sanjeev Katti, ex-director general at ONGC Energy Centre; Dr Somnath Sengupta, professor, IIT Kharagpur; Anupam Jalote, CEO, iCreate; P S Kanan, manager, at TBI Kongu Engineering College; Paul Sanjay, Technical Centre, head of Engineering, Off-Highway Business Unit at Dana India Technical Centre; Poyni Bhat, CEO, SINE; Sunil Motwani, country head, MathWorks; Salim Huzefa, director, Dassault Systems; Anurag Pandey, professor, Anna University; Deepesh Gujrathi, senior system architect, KPIT and Dr Padmakar Deshmukh, head, Dept of Mechanical Engineering at PCCOE.