INNOVATION CUP

OVERVIEW

The AIT Innovation cup competition challenges students to explore their own creativity by using technology to solve what they consider to be the toughest problems facing our global society. The Innovation Cup provides the incentive, but the competitors provide the genius behind innovative, dynamic, and powerful software, hardware and mechanical solutions. Using tools and technology of their choice, competitors can unleash their ideas, curiosities, and talents towards creating usable designs. Technically, students will conceive, test, and build their ideas into applications and/or tools that can change the world.
In order to help you to better understand this year's theme- “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems." – we recommend reading what the United Nations has identified as some of the toughest challenges in the world today, and named them as the Millennium Development Goals.

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5: Improve maternal health
• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development 

WHAT ARE THE START AND END DATES?
This competition starts at 00:01 (12:01 A.M.) Indian Standard Time (IST) on Jan 12, 2010. and ends on the 3rd Day of SOLITIONS 2010.

CAN YOU ENTER?
Every bonafide student of Army Institute of Technology, Pune is eligible.

HOW DO I SIGN UP FOR THE COMPETITION?

1. A Team may consist of up to four (4) eligible students (Same branch, but not necessarily same batch). 
2. Three (3) teams per branch will participate.

REGISTRATIONS

WHAT CONSTITUTES AN ELIGIBILE ENTRY?
To be eligible, your entry / entry materials must meet the following content and technical requirements:

REQUIRED ELEMENTS - Your entry must contain all of the following required elements:
1. Your entry must address a social cause connected to the 2010 Theme:

"Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems."

2. Any presentation or documentation that is a part of your entry must be in the English language. If a translator is needed, you are responsible to procure and to make usage of one.

OPTIONAL ELEMENTS -
Entries containing an implemented prototype will be highly acknowledged.

NOTE: Demonstration of a prototype will be highly acknowledged. However, the stress is on the idea of the problem and innovation of the corresponding solution.


ROUND 1(Qualifiers): WHAT IS THE PROBLEM YOU ARE TRYING TO SOLVE?
During Round 1, your Team must create and submit the materials described below:

A report(report format), 5 pages (Size A4) maximum, submitted as an electronic file in one of the following formats: .doc, .docx, .pdf ,.txt which incorporates the following information:
Project Vision:

1. What problem are you trying to solve?
2. What is your proposed solution to the problem?
3. What are the proposed features of your system?
4. Who will be the potential users of your system?
   
5. Proposed Project Hardware Architecture, Mechanical model (Hardware solutions)
6. Proposed Project Software Architecture and Functionalities (Software solutions)
7. Why would the solution be best implemented as the architecture you proposed?

NOTE: Points 5 and 6 are to be submitted as per the technological span of the project.

Your Vision Statement will be evaluated by a panel of esteemed judges based on the judging criteria below. The top six (6) teams will be selected from the pool of all Round 1 entrants and will advance to the next stage.

JUDGING CRITERIA:

10% - Problem Definition: How precise and relevant is the real world problem? How interesting or difficult to resolve - functionally or technically - is the problem being challenged effectively? For this criterion, we only focus on the problem challenged, not on the solution created to solve this problem. How well does the project adhere to the Theme?

35% - Solution Design & Innovation: Does the design approach a new problem, or look at an old problem in a new way? Is the solution completely innovative or does it rely on an existing concept/technology? Does the design impact a large number of people very broadly, or impact a smaller number of people very deeply? To which degree does the application actually solve the current problem?

30% - Technical Architecture & User Experience: Is the system architecture broken down into logical chunks and modules? Is the project technically open to some evolution? Is it only made with a monolithic block or does it present interfaces enabling extensions? To what degree is the HMI (Human Machine Interface) intuitive, ergonomic and user friendly? Does the application leverage the presence of fresh and updated data?

15% - Business Viability: Is the application technically and economically viable? Is this solution only theoretical or does it have a realistic application for commercial purposes? (Not necessarily here and now, but eventually in the future and/or for certain markets).

10% - Presentation: The judges will be looking for descriptions on the background and context to the project, why the problem is an interesting one, how the system works, and an insightful demonstration.

Scoring System - A simple numerical scoring system will be used. Each judge will give for each judging element a score in the range 0-10.