MICA, Ahmedabad Wins 8th Edition of Samsung E.D.G.E. Campus Programme With Gen AI-based Solution; IIFT, Kolkata & IIM Bangalore are Runners-Up

The eighth edition of Samsung E.D.G.E. received an overwhelming participation from over 15,000 students across 35 esteemed academic institutions, including top B-schools, engineering & design institutes

The winners bagged a cash prize of INR 450,000, a flagship Galaxy smartphone, and a pre-placement offer from Samsung

Finalists received mentoring and guidance from Samsung leaders to improve the solutions they proposed

Samsung, India’s largest consumer electronics brand, has announced the winners of the eighth edition of its pan-India campus programme Samsung E.D.G.E. Through the programme, Samsung is providing thousands of brilliant minds the opportunity to showcase their business acumen, strategic thinking and leadership skills each year.

This year, over 15,000 students from 35 campuses including top B-Schools, engineering colleges, and design schools participated in the programme that witnessed an exhilarating response. Some of the country’s brightest students exhibited their talents and exchanged meaningful insights.

The winning teams proposed some extremely innovative ideas.

Team Edge Runners from MICA, Ahmedabad took home the first prize. Their innovative and unconventional Gen AI-Based solution can enhance customer engagement at various touchpoints in offline and online stores, making their shopping experience more seamless. Focused on making the solution personalised, preferential and accessible to regional audiences too, the idea presented by Aviral Agarwal, Mansi Mathur and Sakshi Bansal impressed the jury the most and won them a cash prize of INR 450,000, Samsung’s flagship smartphones and pre-placement offers from Samsung.

Team Creative Geniuses from IIFT, Kolkata were the first runners-up for presenting a solution that will enable a seamless customer journey through their integrated platform that would converge AI and the power of Neurosciences. Their solution proposed by Apurv Gautam, Ruhi Rai and Soumya Vijayshankar targets three of the five human senses – audio, visual and touch to provide customers an experience of the Samsung product ecosystem and guide them in their purchase journey. The team was awarded a cash prize of INR 300,000.

Team Hustlers from IIM Bangalore were the second runners-up for presenting a solution to enable a seamless customer journey from pre sales to post sales leveraging Gen AI-Based solution. This will help in customer acquisition as well as customer retention. It also extends towards identifying customer needs in a more effective manner. The solution will ensure improved customer experience and enhanced productivity for the brand. Ami Jagani, Abhishek Chhattani, Vishal Shakya won a cash prize of INR 150,000 and pre-placement offers with Samsung.

The finale event conducted in Gurugram, was attended by Mr. JB Park, President and CEO, Samsung Southwest Asia and other senior leaders of Samsung India.

“At Samsung, we prioritize innovation as the foundation of our initiatives. Over the years, Samsung E.D.G.E. has consistently empowered students, providing a platform to showcase creative solutions and foster meaningful change for the society. This year, the programme received an overwhelming response and participation from more students and campuses, which has been truly inspiring for us. We are glad to see the spirit of innovation and problem solving in these young minds,” said Mr. Sameer Wadhawan, Head, Human Resources, Samsung India.

The three-month long programme was conducted in three rounds with 15,000 teams from 35 top-tier institutions participating, this year. Teams collaborated and constructed executive case summaries through research in the ideation-focused first round. Post the campus round, 45 shortlisted teams advanced to the regional round, submitting, and presenting detailed solutions. Subsequently, the top 10 teams underwent mentorship from Samsung leaders and participated in a National Round, concluding with the announcement of the top three winning teams.

Samsung E.D.G.E., which started in December 2016, is a first-of-its-kind campus programme that provides an opportunity for the country’s finest talents to come forward and exchange meaningful insights to get a head-start in their careers.

Showcase of successful Ahmedabad startups on eChai event

On 7th September, Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad (Mica) hosted its Demo Day for business startup of Ahmedabad in association with  Point10 ventures. The event called as - eChai (short for entrepreneurs Chai) was to promote entrepreneurial culture among young and budding entrepreneurs and let successful startup founders share their journey and share knowledge.

Although eChai Demo Day wasn't a fundraising event however it did provide opportunity for young entrepreneurs to network with other entrepreneurs and industry people including mentors, businessmen, angel investors which might take their funding prospects further in future.

The selected startup teams got 10 mins for presenting their demos followed by 5 mins Q&A which includes startups which we have covered on IndianWeb2 already such as - CityShor and Shradhanjali.com, below are some of the other chosen Ahmedabad startups which presented their demo and shared their stories.

Gridle-Desk - Gridle is the visual centric cloud collaboration tool for mid-sized enterprises in India for team management, planning and optimizing their biggest resource - people.

Mech Mocha Game Studios - It aims at creating highly approachable casual games with stunning graphics, addictive gameplay and scalable IPs. We are working on "PABLO & The Puppet Punch", a casual action/arcade game for iOS devices aimed for ages 9+.

Classmint - It is an interactive study notes service rooted in research-proven techniques that help to learn faster and longer. Classmint lets anyone create annotable, audible, beautiful notes that can be folded like a paper.

RemindMeThis.com - An on-line productivity and collaboration tool. Most of the productivity software available, are either way too simple for your serious projects or way too complex and time-consuming.

Indian Pride - Started with, Gujarati Pride a combination of bunch of applications that Include Gujarati Shayri, Kavita, Jokes, Gazal, Gujarati Recipe, Gujarati Editor and Gujarati eBooks. Gujaratis across the globe can enjoy this entertaining content which is updated almost every 15 days. The content can be shared among all social networks. Another Gujarati Pride app is a Gujarati eBook app, this app has around 19 books and growing in number. This app allows to read gujarati books for free. It is now available in other major regional languages of India.

Binary Thinkers - A game development company which brings the best of Games, Graphics and apps to people. Some of their innovative games include - Apple Run 3D & Snakes & Ladders 3D.

CourseKart.com - Aims to develop a platform where instructors and institutions can quickly create learning solutions and methodologies that complement school learnings – enabling students to optimize and enhance their learning experience and achieve success in their endeavors. NO CONSTRAINT of distance, space and language should exist.

Start51.com  - A crowd-funding and online fund-raising platform for projects where creative ideas meet financial contributors to transform your unique ideas into reality.

Hash Media: A startup building a Virtual Mirror - an Augmented reality trial room application with point of sale installation , which helps to try out different types of clothes , jweleries , spectacles , etc. with the help of webcam and Virtual Real Estate - An Augmented Reality application to a 3D graphical model of any kinds of buildings or monuments and helps of the see through the plans of any floors or room plans in 3D i.e. like a 3D virtual tour inside any kinds of building.

Vyaap Technologies - The company builds educational apps for kids - ABC for Kids All Alphabet, Kids Zoo Animal Sounds &Photos, Kids learn with fun (Vehicles) and many others, and these apps have seen over 6 million downloads.

The entrepreneurs chai demo day use to happen every quarter of a year since December 2012 and now the next eChai Demo day would be on December 2013, startups and entrepreneurs from Ahmedabad can register for Demo day in advance