Manav Rachna International University (MRIU) bagged gold medal at the prestigious Intel India Embedded Challenge 2012 (IIEC 2012) for its innovative project called “Skill Blaster”.

MRIU is the only university to make it to top third time in a row. MRIU team has also been selected among the top five teams by Mr. Manav Subodh, Global Manager Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Intel Corporation. He showed keen interest to launch “Skill Blaster” as a pilot project in rural India. Mr. Swapan Garain of Tata Institute of Social Sciences fined it close to his heart. Mr. Garain stressed on the fact that India requires such kind of social innovation tool and the contribution made by these students will go a long way.

Manav Rachna students have been consistently performing extremely well in Innovation and Technology competitions across the sectors. Students from Manav Rachna have not only captured top honours at the various levels of Intel Embedded Competition for the past three years but also bagged top honours at the prestigious Micrososft Imagine Cup, SUPRA SAE India and scores of other competitions.

Congratulating all the winners, Dr. O.P. Bhalla, Chancellor, MRIU said, “At Manav Rachna Educational Institutions our vision is to promote the concept of free thinking to inculcate the values of Innovation and Entrepreneurship among our students so that they could apply their knowledge and produce path breaking innovations that would help the society and the country in large.”

Intel India Embedded Challenge is an embedded design contest for Students, Interested Individuals & Entrepreneurs from all over India. This contest has been put forward to inspire the vast technically savvy community in India to architect, design and develop novel embedded applications based on Intel Atom processors in areas such as Consumer Electronics, Digital Security Surveillance, Medical, Storage & others. Intel is organising this event from past three years in collaboration with Intelligent Systems Group of Intel Technology India Pvt. Ltd.

This year in Intel India Embedded Challenge 2012, initially 2800 teams from all over India registered for participation. But only 300 teams could qualify for phase II level competition. The finally short-listed teams developed the prototypes using the Intel “atom kit” that is provided by Intel and submitted the same for final evaluation by the Evaluation Committee for Finals. Only 30 teams were qualified after the development of the prototype for the final phase to face evaluation and showcase of the projects which was held for at Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore before the jury panel consisting of eminent personalities from Academia, Industry and Government. A team from Manav Rachna International University (MRIU) bagged gold medal in the finals for its innovative project called “Skill Blaster”.

Skill Blaster is 3D virtual industrial training system which can impart practical knowledge, skill & practice sessions in the different verticals of employment like Soap making, Computer Assembly, etc. It is the first initiative of its kind to bridge the gap between industry demand and unskilled labour. Vikrant Siwach, Yashesvee Bhutani, Tarun Singla & Pankaj of Computer Science Engineering, Chander Bhushan, Siddharth Kumar, Shivani Suhag and Joyeeta Roy of Electronic and Communication Engineering and Vinay Kushwaha, student of Information Technology of Faculty of Engineering and Technology MRIU and Manpreet Bhatti, Student of NIFT, Mumbai are the team members. The team was mentored by Mr. Sanjay Bansal under the supervision of Dr. M. K. Soni Dean and Prof. Naresh Grover Director, Faculty of Engineering and Technology.