Accenture Innovation Challenge winners develop tech to address sleep disorders

Accenture announced the winners of the first edition of Accenture Innovation Challenge. The competition was designed to inspire innovation among college students in India. The winners were chosen from 12 teams selected to participate in the Grand Finale round held in Bengaluru, based on the categories of innovativeness, technical feasibility, and impact.

The students — representing various disciplines, including engineering, design, commerce and business management — demonstrated innovative uses of technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, blockchain, cloud, mobility and analytics.

First of such innovations and the Grand Prize winner was SleepDoc invented by IIT Kharagpur students.   SleepDoc is a wireless sleep assistant that addresses the growing problem of sleeping disorders in the current generation. SleepDoc uses a wireless device to remotely monitor sleep pattern and an intelligent voice interactive system to suggest changes to the user.

The Jury's choice award was won by the team SNAP who created a solution to help farmers increase the quality of farm yield, optimize spends on fertilizers and increase income by addressing the problem of soil acidification due to fertilizer overuse.

Sahaya is a blockchain solution designed to deal with the unique challenges associated with making donations. Sahaya was awarded the Most Popular Choice award developed and designed by an all women's team from Shri Vishnu Engineering College.

Meet Binbot- a robot that performs various waste management tasks such as waste collection, segregation, and disposal. It uses infrared sensors to keep the disposal bin’s lid closed and has a built-in plastic detector to alert users to segregate plastic waste from other waste. The Binbot robot was developed by Dronacharya Group of Institution, Noida and  awarded the Disruptive Business Category award.

The Employee's Choice award was awarded to a team from IIT Madras who designed a Compact Bio-inspired robot for septic and sewage line cleaning and inspection. The team created a robot that removed blockages and cleans sewers which can minimize health disorders.

The Tech for Good category award was won by Real-Time Text to Braille Converter which makes printed information easily accessible to the visually impaired. The technology comprises of a letter-to-letter Braille converter that prints the recognized letter in the Braille cell and a small cuboid that can be held with three fingers, enabling the visually impaired to read any printed book.

Each member of the Grand Prize team received prizes worth Rs 100,000, as well as an all-expense paid trip to ‘The Dock’, Accenture’s multidisciplinary research and incubation hub in Dublin, Ireland. Each member of the two teams selected as a category winner — for ‘Disruptive Businesses’ and ‘Tech for Good’ — received prizes worth Rs 50,000.

Besides awarding the prizes and trophies, Accenture conducted a fast-track recruitment process for eligible students in the Grand Finale to join Accenture’s technology centers in India.